Along the Way

Along the Way The Life and Times of Hubert and Betty Peter

Editor: Judith Kolva, Ph.D. Legacies In Ink, LLC www.LegaciesInk.com Judith@LegaciesInk.com 954-759-4531 Designer: Enid Grigg Heritage Biographies www.HeritageBiographies.com Š 2014 by the Peter Family All rights reserved. No part of this document may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without prior written permission of the Peter Family.

Photographs courtesy of the Peter Family, the Library of Congress, and Wikimedia Commons.

“Even when you got troubles, make every day a perfect day.”

~Hubert Peter

Dedication Through my networking, I met Chuck Schwabe and Judith Kolva, owners of Legacies In Ink. Chuck and Judith write and produce books that preserve family legacies. As I learned more about their work, I thought about Mom and Dad—their children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren live in Germany, Minnesota, Colorado, California, and Florida. It was time to connect all of us with our heritage and make sure Hubert and Betty Peter’s legacies live on—to make sure we remember their stories and values so we can pass them on to future generations. Who better to tell their story and offer guidance than Hubert Peter?

Throughout our lives we all go through tough times and good times. In today’s fast-paced world, you may occasionally wonder about your family’s roots . . . What was life like years ago? How did my family survive tough times and good times (especially without a computer!)? What can I learn from my ancestors?

I talked to my sister Karla about preserving our family’s story and legacy in a book. She was in full support.

Convincing Dad was tougher, but in the end he decided it would be good for future generations to know more about him and Mom. This book—Along the Way—is dedicated to Hubert and Betty Peter’s current and future generations. You will read one man’s story and learn his perspective on love, family, tough times, good times, religion, approach to life, fun, and more. You will learn why they are important keys throughout your life.

Karla and I have many great memories of Mom and Dad and our life together when we were kids and adults.

Each and every time I read a proof of Along the Way, the stories, advice, and wisdom made me smile and brought tears to my eyes. I am honored and thrilled that you, too, have a copy of the book that preserves the story and the legacy of Hubert and Betty Peter.

Each of us has bits and pieces of the Peter family in us . . . remember, enjoy, and treasure.

Terry Peter December 2013

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Foreword I’m ninety years old. Still going strong. You know, my life had ups and downs. But I always made something out of whatever God sent my way.

Thing is, I always told the truth. Still do. Now it’s time to tell about what happened to me and Betty. If I don’t, the generations that come along won’t know where they came from. That’s not right.

There’s more. I enjoy going back and remembering what Betty and I did. If I don’t, I just go on day to day and forget the interesting stuff. That’s not right, either.

I hope you like reading our story as much as I liked telling it.

I hope some of the things Betty and I learned along our way, will help you along your way.

Hubert Peter

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Back row left, to right: Norman, Jim, Hubert (me), Leonard, Melvin, Emmet, Curt, Richard Front row left, to right: Laurina, Mom (Helena Peter), Elnora

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My Ancestors German, Both Sides My family is German, both sides. Carl Friedrich Peter was my grandpa on my dad’s side. He was born in 1847, in Grosswerther, Germany. Julia Klieder was my grandma on my dad’s side. Henry Rambath was my grandpa on my mom’s side. My grandma on my mom’s side was German, too. I can’t remember her name—maybe I never knew it.

I don’t know when my grandparents came to America. I do know when people came over they settled around people from the same homeland. Germans, Norwegians, Swedes, Irish—everybody did the same thing. One got here and wrote home. Before you knew it, more and more like-people settled in the same area, went to the same church, and talked the same language.

Norwegians and Swedes settled in Stanhope, Iowa. Irish settled to the south. My German relation settled around Boone, Iowa.

I suspect that’s because the landscape and climate are the same as in Germany.

Ten Kids Seemed to me Dad had lots of names—George John Ernest Carl Peter. Lucky for him, folks called him “George.” Dad was born June 30, 1888, in Boone County Iowa.

Mom’s name was easier—Helena Rambath. She was born May 13, 1898, in Lotts Creek, Kossuth County, Iowa. I’m not sure

how Mom and Dad met or when they got married. Evidently they did, because they ended up with ten kids, all born at home on their farm in Boone County, Harrison Township, Iowa. We looked like stair steps: Elnora, Laurina, Norman, Hubert (me), Leonard, Melvin, Emmet, Richard, Curt, and Jim. I came along May 17, 1923. My parents gave me almost as many names as Dad—Hubert Levi Henry Peter. I guess Henry is after my grandfather, but I don’t know where the others come from. People mostly called me Hube or even Hubie.

It seemed to me Mom was always pregnant. In those days, people didn’t talk about havin’ babies. When they did, they said she was “in the family way.” When it was Mom’s time, Aunt Lydya (Dad’s brother Fred’s wife) and probably the doctor came out to the house. (You see, back then, folks never went to town to see the doctor. Doctors made house calls.)

Well, Dad didn’t want kids around for the birthin’, so he sent us to Uncle Fred’s for the night. Uncle Fred and Aunt Lydya only lived a mile and a half from our place. The next morning Dad came by and said, “You got another brother.” For the first three, maybe four, we were happy. But as Mom got on in years, we thought she was kinda’ old to keep havin’ babies.

Nothin’ Happens Back then, salesmen drove door to door selling life insurance, knives, bowls, kettles—all kinds of stuff. One day, us kids was standing in the yard listening-in, like farm kids did. The salesman looked at us. He looked at Dad. He said, “Gee, George, you get a new kid every time.”

Dad said, “Nope. Quite a few times nothin’ happens!”

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Talked German My parents talked German at home. One was High-German.

One was Low-German. So Dad and Mom had a hard time understanding each other. They didn’t talk too much. When we got company from Mom’s side, they talked like crazy, but Daddy just set there. When we got company from his side, he would get right in there and just go. Then, Mom was left out.

I wish my parents had talked more. Maybe I would have learned more German. Mom tried to teach us German prayers and certain words. I learned some. But not much.

Dad talked English pretty good. He taught us, and we pretty much talked English at home. Mom’s side lived about a hundred miles north in Algona, Iowa. We talked German at their house, and when they came to visit, we weren’t allowed to talk English.

When the United States got into it with Germany during World War II, nobody talked German, you know. It’s kinda’ sad, but whatever German I learned I forgot.

Betty’s Ancestors Farm Family Betty isn’t doin’ so good now. She has dementia and can’t remember her life when she was a kid. I’ll tell you what I know.

Like me, Betty’s German, both sides. Her grandpa on her mom’s side was named Julius Krumm. He was born December 31, 1871, in Boden, Germany. Her grandma on her mom’s side was named Fredricka Kreutner. She was born October 20, 1878, in Boden, Germany. It’s kinda’ interesting that the word “Boden” means soil. Seems fitting—Betty is from a farm family. We both are, you know.

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Back row left, to right: Harlan, Betty, Deane. Front row: Elsie Eckley

Betty’s grandpa on her dad’s side was named Daniel Eckley. Never heard where he was born. Never heard her grandma’s name.

Evidently, Betty’s grandparents, both sides, came to America before 1900 and settled in Iowa, because Betty’s mom, Elsie Barbara Krumm, was born in Iowa in 1900. Her dad, Eugene Harry Eckley, was born in Iowa in 1901.

Somewhere along the line, Eugene and Elsie got married. They had three kids: Deane, Betty, and Harlan. They were all born at home in Boone County, Harrison Township, Iowa. Betty was the second. She came along September 13, 1927. Her parents named her Betty Lou Eckley.

A Pony

Back row left, to right: Betty, Harlan, Deane. Front row: Elsie and Eugene Eckley

A Pony

Short but Quick

Betty’s family was Lutheran, except her grandma on her dad’s side. She was strict Catholic. Don’t know for certain, but maybe that’s why Betty went to a parochial school.

Betty was the only girl in her family, but she had a girlfriend she talked about. Her name was Inez Tietgen. Inez went to our church, and she and Betty played basketball together at Stanhope High School. Betty was short. But she was quick. She could out-move the other girls. Too bad I never got to watch her play basketball.

Betty lived about a half-mile from school. Back then, kids either walked or rode a horse. Betty and her brothers rode a pony. The school even had a hitching post. Betty’s family had a Shetland pony named Blue Star. He was pretty spunky. Betty wasn’t a tough cowboy, so she probably rode a calmer one.

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Old Clucks Betty had one outside farm chore—pickin’ eggs. You see, old clucks are chickens that don’t lay eggs anymore, but still set on them ’til they hatch. They’d be just a cluckin’ and a peckin’, so Betty’d grab a hoe and knock them clean off their nests. Betty didn’t much like pickin’ eggs.

That’s all I can tell you about Betty’s childhood.

School Days Country School My very first memory is school. I was five in May, and school started in September. Most kids were six years old, so bein’ only five, I was young. But I liked school.

Ours was a country school. Back in my day, kids from four sections of farmland around the schoolhouse went to the same school. A section of land is a mile square. Hard to believe, but we had twenty kids in that one-room, fifty-square-foot schoolhouse.

There was one teacher. She put two, maybe three, kids in each grade. If she didn’t have enough kids for your grade, she stuck you in the next grade. She taught all subjects to all eight grades.

Teacher was good. She had to be.

A blackboard ran across the front of the room. Two closets— one for girls; one for boys—were on the back wall. Teacher’s square, wooden desk was up front. Four chairs were in front of it. That’s where we set to have class and learn lessons.

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When we weren’t reciting lessons, we were supposed to set at our desks, keep quiet, and study. We listened-in more than we studied. With all of us in the same classroom, there was nothin’ wrong with that. We didn’t cheat. We heard what was coming up and thought about what we just learned. We got a good education.

Spitballs We wrote mostly with a pencil. Sometimes, though, we used a pen. It wasn’t like pens today. It was a real ink pen. There was a little holder on our desks for ink bottles. We dipped the pen in the bottle and wrote ’til the ink was gone. Then, we dipped again and wrote some more.

Our paper was a tablet. If you’re thinkin’ of a computer tablet, don’t! Our tablet was rough, lined paper, glued together in a book. We tore off a sheet and wrote.

I’ll tell you the best thing about our paper: I wadded it up, made spitballs, and hid them in a bag. When Teacher wasn’t lookin’, I shot paper wads at the girls.

Report Cards Math was my favorite subject. We had government. I liked some of that. I got lots out of maps, geography, and history. English was kinda’ interesting. It was hard, but it was interesting.

We got report cards. As long as we didn’t get “F’s,” we didn’t care about grades. My grades went from a few “F’s” in English, to “D’s” in other subjects, to always “A’s” in math.

“Back in my day, kids from four sections of farmland around the schoolhouse went to the same school.”

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Frozen Noses Teacher rang the school bell at nine o’clock. School let out at four. We got up at six, so we could do our chores, eat breakfast, and leave the house by eight, because even in the winter, we walked a mile to the schoolhouse. When the drifts were really, really high, Dad hitched horses to the bobsled, and we piled in. No way could he drive us in the car—the car was too hard to start in the wintertime.

Most days we wrapped scarves around our necks, pulled on galoshes, and took off on foot. By the time we got to school, our noses were frozen. Teacher rubbed them with snow, and we went on about our business.

Wrong Pail Mom packed our lunches. You see, we got molasses in onegallon pails. After the molasses was gone, Mom used the pails for dinner buckets. We never threw nothin’ away. Mostly, she made peanut butter sandwiches. Not meat. Sometimes, she mixed crushed pineapple with the peanut butter. Most days she stuck in apples and homemade cookies.

My brother and I shared a dinner bucket. One day, we were outside playing when Mom called us, “Hurry up! Gotta’ leave.” I ran in the house, grabbed our dinner bucket, and we took off. Mom stuck her head out the door and hollered, “Got your oranges?” Oranges were a special treat.

I looked real quick and hollered back, “They’re there!”and away we went.

About ten o’clock Teacher rang the bell for recess. That’s when we ate our cookies. So my brother grabbed our dinner bucket, 14

set it on the schoolyard, opened it, closed it real quick, and ran it back inside. I couldn’t for the life of me figure why he didn’t hand me my cookie.

Pretty soon, here he comes—just a rollin’ in the grass, laughin’ his head off. I thought, Guess I’d better check our dinner bucket. Come to find out, I’d grabbed a pail full of eggs. They were all broke.

Story City High School Believe it or not, when I started ninth grade at Story City High School, over in Story City, Iowa, I had never even been in a high school. I’ll never forget the first day: There were probably fifty kids in my class. The building was big. I had to change classrooms and find my way around. All I could think was, It’s awful!

You see, town kids went to the city grade school. They were in the same class. They knew each other. And there I was—a rural farm kid, riding into the big city on a school bus.

Going to school without knowing anybody was scary. I felt like I was up against impossibility. But I decided to stick it out and learn. And that’s exactly what I did. Along the way, I always stuck things out, no matter how scared I was.

Country kids brought our dinners and ate them in the lunchroom. We knew each other and stuck together. Town kids went home for dinner. They knew each other and stuck together. But pretty soon, kids made new friends and kinda’ mixed together.

After things settled down, I was excited to come in from the country to a city school. Actually, in those days, it was something else!

Story City High School

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Story City

Just a Farm Kid

We thought Story City was a big town. Really, it was a small town. The town itself depended on rural people for trade. So we were pretty well accepted. Story City had wide brick streets— almost twice as wide as town streets today.

I mostly got “B’s” and “C’s” on my report cards. Some subjects, though, I got “D’s.” My parents didn’t care. You see, in those days, high school was new for rural kids.

Main Street—the business district—was about two blocks long and two blocks wide. It had two clothing stores, bank, grocery store, drugstore, hardware store, and garage, all run by the owners.

There was a restaurant four blocks from our school that sold ice cream cones. After dinner we walked up town and at least looked. Ice cream cones cost a nickel. Sometimes I had a nickel.

Most times I didn’t. When I did, I bought a strawberry ice cream cone.

Farm Shop Truth is, I liked high school. It was all new. I learned new things. Everything was kinda’ interesting. Take classes—we had history and English like in grade school, but science and math were different. Then, we had farm shop in a classroom full of saws, planes, and turning lathes.

I made a hog crate. You see, we didn’t have a pickup truck on the farm—just a wagon. So when we wanted to take a hog someplace, we didn’t have anywhere to put him. Well, I took care of that problem.

During the summertime, the candles at church melted down, so I made candleholders on the turning lathe and gave them to the pastor’s wife. She thought they looked real nice. Then, I made a wheelbarrow. The school had the handles and wheels. I bought the top parts and attached them. It turned out good.

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My parents went to school through lower grade school. That’s where they learned to talk English, read, and write. But they never went to high school. School wasn’t important. So when I got “D’s” on my report card, they thought, Oh well. He’s just a farm kid.

Clothes I graduated high school in ’40, so the Depression was still partially on. Things were getting better, but people still had financial problems. So clothes were common—plain. Kids didn’t get dressed all fancy like they do today.

I didn’t have many clothes. I wore dress pants with T-shirts and sweatshirts. Most clothes were hand-me-downs—one brother wore them, then, passed them down to the next brother.

I was never embarrassed about my clothes. Sure, a few kids were rich—better off than others. But rural kids were in the same class as far as clothes and style, and, thing is, city kids didn’t made fun of us. You see, back then kids didn’t do that kinda’ stuff—at least, not much.

No Money I didn’t have no money. So I missed out on dating. I did go to my prom. You see, this kid borrowed his dad’s car and drove from house to house picking up other kids. By the time we got to the prom, the car was full.

First off was a big banquet. After we ate, we went to the dance. I didn’t know much about dancin’, but I tried. I don’t remember my date’s name, but I can tell you she was the prettiest girl in my class. I even kissed her goodnight!

I didn’t play sports. I wasn’t in band or glee club—nothin’ like that. I did go to assembly programs. You see, entertainers traveled from town to town, set up on a stage, and put on a show for locals. One day, a ventriloquist came to Boone. He talked, and it was like somebody clear on the other end of the stage was hollerin’ at him. I couldn’t believe it.

Anyway, assemblies were about all I did for fun. You see, I didn’t have no money. Plus, we lived seven­-and-a-half miles from town, and I didn’t own a car. The car belonged to Dad. My brothers and I asked to use it at night but didn’t get it too often.

Mostly, I rode the bus home from school, did my chores, and went to bed.

Manure You probably won’t believe this, but all through high school I never had enough money to go to a basketball game. I didn’t even know what basketball was. I’d seen the gym floor and guys talked about it, but that’s all I knew.

I knew a little about football. Sometimes, when I was a senior, if I could get a ride, I might go to town and watch a game.

Usually, I watched from outside the fence. You see, I didn’t want to spend money on a ticket—tickets cost a quarter, you know. I had to buy school supplies with my money. I ain’t complainin’ though—I got by.

I worked during my junior and senior years and made a dollar, maybe two, a day. My jobs were jobs nobody else wanted—you

know, like clean out the chicken coop. I scooped manure from underneath the roost with a hoe or rake. Unless you’ve smelled chicken manure, you’ve got no idea what I put up with.

When I got done in the chicken coop, the farmer usually needed me for another job—maybe cleanin’ out the horse barn or even the outhouse. It seemed I was always cleanin’ manure out of one thing or another.

Good Kid When we got in trouble, the punishment was to go to assembly and copy words over and over. I didn’t get in trouble too often, but I do remember the time I skipped school with a couple other kids and went to the open house at Ames College. We got back to school in time to ride the bus home. But we got caught.

Then, I got the assembly treatment, with all the copyin’.

Most country kids, including me, didn’t drink. Town kids did.

You see, Story City was a Norwegian town. It had a liquor store and taverns had just started comin’ in. Well, you had to be twenty-one to buy liquor. When you turned twenty-one, you got what was called a “liquor book” that proved your age. It was about half the size of a checkbook, and whenever you bought liquor they wrote what you bought in your book.

Anyway, the Future Farmers of America had a convention in Kansas. The school paid for our trip and hotel expenses.

Somehow town kids—the Norwegians—got hold of a liquor book. They drank until they were half-drunk. All I could think was, What in the world is wrong with these guys?

“I always stuck things out, no matter how scared I was.”

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When I got home, I told Dad what happened. He said, “But they’re Norwegians—strict and dry.”

I laughed and said, “Wrong. They’re real hell raisers!”

You know, it was different for me. I was a good kid—didn’t get into real trouble at school. I never got in a jam at home, and to tell the truth, I spent most of my time at home. But, then, that’s the way it was with farm kids.

Day Work After I graduated, I lived at home and did day work. Sometimes, I picked or shocked corn. That was a dirty job. I got paid two dollars a day. The next year a farmer hired me on full-time for forty dollars a month, plus room and board. I worked three months, but he never paid me. So I quit and went home. Ain’t that an awful way to start out your work life?

Graduation

Nip-and-Tuck

When I graduated in ’40, I had just turned seventeen. I was the youngest kid in my class. You probably won’t believe this, but my folks went to graduation. Then, we went on home. They didn’t give me no party. No gifts. Nothing.

Then, I did odd jobs for neighbors and hoped to get paid some, but because I didn’t have much money, dating was always nipand-tuck. It never took a whole lot, you know. Still, I needed at least five dollars for a date. Sometimes I made a date and called it off because I couldn’t afford it.

I was disappointed but thought, That’s just how my folks do things and went on about my business. Something I learned real good along the way is never hold on to disappointments.

My brother, Norman, went to high school one year. He didn’t like it. He quit.

My older sister graduated high school, which was unusual for a girl back then. She lived with a family in town and worked as a hired girl. She got her room and board free and walked to school.

All my brothers after me graduated high school. My two youngest brothers even graduated seminary and went on to be pastors.

None of that school stuff mattered to my parents. They just wanted us to be good people.

When I did go out, usually two or three guys got dates and one drove. It was about seventeen, maybe eighteen, miles into Boone. When it was my turn, I had to ask Dad for his car. He had a ’50s Plymouth and a late ’30s Chevy, with a truck on back. Nothin’ fancy. Gas cost a buck for six gallons. I always hoped the car already was gassed up.

I took my dates to the show or roller skating—that’s what most kids did back then. It cost seventy-five cents to get in the show and about the same for roller skating. Afterwards, we went up to the restaurant and got coffee or a Coke.

If I really liked the girl, I might buy her a sandwich. It all depended on how much I wanted to spend. Sometimes I didn’t spend nothin’!

“Something I learned real good along the way is never hold on to disappointments.”

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The Olden Days Different Farming was different in the olden days. Dad started out farming in Story County with horses. It wasn’t ’til right before the war that tractors came in. Then, nobody used horses anymore.

We had six big, strong Morgans. A team (two) pulled the corn planter and hauled wagonloads. We hitched two, maybe three, to the plow and four to the disc.

A disc has eighteen-inch blades, about four inches apart. It slices the through the ground, turning over dirt and trash left over from last year’s crops. (You still see discs once in a while today. But they’re big. Nothin’ like what we used.)

Depending on the crop, we plowed. In the real early days, Dad used a one-horse hand plow.

We picked ear corn and threw it in the corncrib. Then, we cracked it in two, maybe three, pieces and fed it to the cows. The pigs weren’t particular. They ate anything. We threw the whole ear into their feeding pan then filled up their water trough. We didn’t have feeders like today, so it was lots of work.

Anyway, after the cows and pigs ate the corn, the corncob was left over. We picked ’em up, threw ’em in a basket, and Mom burned ’em in the woodstove. Well, whenever it was gonna’ rain, corncobs were a big issue. Mom made us pick them up real quick like, so they didn’t get wet. That wasn’t fun, at all.

“We didn’t have feeders like today, so it was lots of work.”

Our House Our house was kinda’ different from other houses around.

When you pulled off the road onto the lane, the first thing you saw was two big, red barns—one for horses and pigs, one for cattle. Next, you saw a chicken coop. Then, you saw the grain bins where we stored oats and the corncribs where we stored corncobs. You didn’t see the house ’til you looked past the other buildings.

Our yard was half nut grass and half dirt. Nut grass was nice, because we didn’t have to mow it. The cattle and horses were fenced in. Not the yard. It was open. Chickens, geese, and ducks ran loose and pecked bugs.

Cellar An open porch with a board floor ran fifteen feet across one side of the house. We stepped up on four-foot, flat, heart-shaped rocks to get onto the porch. There were doors off the porch.

One opened to the kitchen, one to the dining room, and one to a ladder that led to the dug-out cellar underneath the house.

The cellar floor was dirt. Its walls were layered up with stones.

It stayed cool in the summer and didn’t freeze in the winter.

Mom canned corn, peas, beans, and other vegetables from our garden and stored them in the cellar. We also made sauerkraut and kept it in a ten-gallon crock in the cellar.

Hand Pump We had a hand-pump, about a hundred feet from the house.

It pumped water from the deep cistern that filled up with rainwater that ran down the eve spouts. Us kids pumped water, by hand, into a pail and carried it to the house.

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When we wanted a drink, we dipped a dipper in the pail and poured water in a tin cup. After our drink, we set the cup down and went about our business ’til we was thirsty again. Then, we dipped water in the same cup.

Yep! We all used the same cup. But it was healthy, you know.

Kitchen Our kitchen had a woodstove, where we burned wood or corncobs. Sometimes coal. We had a sink but no running water.

A pail full of drinking and cooking water set next to the stove.

That water was cold. To get hot water we poured cold water into our stove’s boiler, where it heated up.

We had a table in the kitchen. It had a little bench in the back, where the kids set. That’s where we ate most meals. But once in a while, on special days, Mom let us eat in the dining room.

The kitchen always had a highchair. And, for sure, there was a cradle. You see, Mom fixed up a little oblong, woven basket and set it on the kitchen floor, or on the table, or on a chair.

Wherever it set, that’s where the baby laid. And there was ALWAYS a baby.

Outhouse Our toilet—the outhouse—was outside. It was a little wooden building, about ten-feet square. We dug a hole and set the building over it. When the hole filled up with you-know-what, we dug another hole and moved the building.

The outhouse had a board—a little bench—with two holes.

We sanded-down the board around the holes so we didn’t get splinters in our butts. Old Sears Catalogues were toilet paper.

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When you were in the outhouse and somebody else had to go, they just walked right in and set next to you. Kids didn’t care, you know.

I’ll tell you this—come wintertime in Iowa, it was cold. We didn’t set long! Sometimes we used the pot under the bed. Nobody saw you. Even if they did, it beat doin’ your duty outside.

Mom and Dad used the pot lots. We kids didn’t use it much ’til we got older. Then, we made a rule: empty your own pot.

When Mom and Dad used the pot, I don’t know who emptied it. I guess one of them carried it to the outhouse and dumped it down the hole.

32-Volt Light Plan When I was real young, electric lines didn’t come out as far as our house, so we used kerosene lamps. At night we lit one lamp.

That wasn’t much light. When you wanted to see real good, you had to get right up next to the lamp.

When I was about eight, we got what was called a “32-volt light plan” and installed it in the cellar. You see, that was sixteen 2-volt batteries set in a square glass case. A generator ran off a gas engine and charged up the batteries, so we had electric lights. The 32-volt wasn’t like the 110, but it was pretty good.

Not many people even had the 32-volt.

Radio We had a radio that ran off a dry cell battery. It was in the dining room, and after we ate, we set there and listened together. Turning the radio on and shutting it off was Dad’s job. He shut it off after a half-hour, because he didn’t want to use up the battery.

After about six weeks, we had to buy a new battery. Radios didn’t come in ’til we were getting out of the Depression. By then, things were better, so we had a little money to buy batteries.

high. Up top was a small door. We opened it for ice. Down below was another small door. We opened it for food.

We kids liked to listen to cartoon programs and Popeye the Sailorman. Dad liked The Lone Ranger. We all listened to news programs. Smaller towns, like ours, only got a newspaper once a week. So our news was mostly what we heard on the radio.

We didn’t have ice regular, but sometimes on weekends or during the summertime, when it was real hot, we ordered a twenty-five pound ice block, picked it up in town, carried it down cellar, and put it in the icebox—the cellar was the coolest place in the house, so that’s where the icebox set.

Bedtime

Telephone

After chores and supper, we played checkers, or Chinese checkers, or dominos, or cards—mostly Rook or Old Maid.

When we were in school, we did schoolwork. But not that much. Not like kids do nowadays.

Our telephone was on a party line. That meant there were eight, maybe ten, families that shared the same line. You didn’t set there talkin’ to your girlfriend long, because somebody always listened in. We called that “rubbernecking.”

We went to bed early—about eight o’clock. It all depended on the light. You see, before we got the 32-volt, we lit candles or carried a lamp to bed. There was no heat upstairs. It got so cold it froze. We slept under big quilts and during the wintertime, never took off our long underwear.

If you wanted to say something you didn’t want somebody else to hear, you talked German, and they couldn’t understand you.

We had three bedrooms. Our sisters slept in one. The boys slept in another. Three boys slept in one double bed—usually two older ones with the younger one who followed. So it was me, Norman, and probably Leonard together. Most nights, the boys made mouse noises and scared the girls to death.

Icebox After we got the 32-volt plan, we bought a 32-volt refrigerator.

Before that we had an icebox. An icebox was an insulated wooden box, about a foot-and-a-half wide and a foot-and-a-half

Chores The older kids did the hardest chores. Otherwise we all kinda’ did everything—fed pigs, fed horses, cleaned the barn, milked ten cows by hand, fed chickens, picked eggs, drove cows out to pasture in the morning, drove them back to the barn in the afternoon. My sisters didn’t do much outside work. They mostly stayed in the house, working with Mom. We did chores before school. After school we did them again.

Then, Mom called us for supper. Day after day, that was life on the farm.

“Most nights, the boys made mouse noises and scared the girls to death.”

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Egg Pickin’

Thrashin’ Day

I did lots of egg pickin’ in my day. You see, chickens set on nests in the chicken coop and hatch eggs. Those old hens tucked their heads under their wings and rocked back and forth—kinda’ like they was sleepin’.

Fall was harvest season. Thrashin’ crews went from farm to farm—farmer helped farmer. Men cut grain into bundles, about eight feet tall, loaded the bundles into a wagon, and a team of horses hauled them to the thrashin’ machine.

They couldn’t fool me—I yanked their heads from under their wings and grabbed the eggs real quick. I got pecked more times than I can tell you. But I just waved my hand, threw the chickens off their nests, and away I went.

Thrashers pitched the bundles, by hand, into feeders, where the oats were separated from the straw. Horses pulled loads back to the barns. Straw was thrust, by hand, into the barns.

Oats were scooped, by hand, into bins. It was hot, hard, sweaty work. I was probably thirteen years old before I got to help.

A couple women helped Mom fix food and feed the thrashin’ crew. Mid-morning, the men stopped work, ate sandwiches, and drank coffee. The really big meal was around three o’clock.

Beef and pork roasts, vegetables, sauerkraut, mashed potatoes, and pies got ate up real quick. After the thrashers ate, we finished what was left.

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Canned Food

The Right Way

We grew most of our food. The only things Mom bought in town were flour, sugar, baking powder, soda, salt, and pepper— stuff like that.

My brothers and I butchered roosters year ’round. There’s only one way to butcher a rooster . . .

We had a big garden. Us kids picked vegetables, and Mom canned hundreds of quarts of everything—tomatoes, corn, green beans, peas, carrots, onions.

We had chickens, two breeds of pigs, and cows. Back then, nobody had a freezer. You see, home freezers didn’t come in ’til the ’40s. So every year, during the fall, we butchered enough cows and pigs to run us through the winter. Then, we canned the meat. The upstairs in our house wasn’t heated, so it was cold enough to keep the meat safe all winter.

Chase him ’round the barnyard and nab his leg with a chicken catcher (a stick with a hook). Flop him on a chopping block.

WHACK off his head with a hatchet.

You see, after a rooster’s head is chopped off, his nerves still work. So don’t let go of him. If you do, he kicks his feet and bounces up and down for a couple minutes, flinging blood all over the barnyard. You gotta’ hang on real tight ’til he bleeds out.

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Dip him up and down in hot water and scrape off his feathers ’til he’s clean as a whistle. Gut him. You see, roosters (and chickens) have a crop—a pocket—their food goes into. From there, it works its way to the gizzard, where it’s digested. Make a little cut and clean out the gizzard. Then, dip him in cold water.

Now the best part: fry him up. There ain’t much better eatin’ than a fresh-fried rooster.

That’s how to butcher a rooster, the right way.

Bath Business If we did a real dirty job, we got to take a bath during the week.

That didn’t happen too often. Saturday night was bath night.

We had to be nice and clean for Sunday church, you know.

Accidents

The water in the stove’s boiler got hot. Mom poured it into the washtub. No way, was there as much water in the tub as people use today.

Most farmers have accidents. Terrible accidents. We never had nothin’ real bad. Sure somebody might hit their thumb with a hammer or step on a nail barefoot. But we never had broken arms or legs. We were lucky that way.

Our two sisters, being girls, got to take baths in the afternoon.

But the boys had to wait ’til after supper. When we were young, mom popped two in the tub at the same time. Then, the next two. It was good to be first, because she never changed the water.

Happy

Mom used her homemade lye soap to wash clothes. But we got to use store-bought soap to take a bath, and that was something else. Before we got too big, we set down in the tub and soaped up with a washcloth. After we got bigger, we took our dirty clothes in with us and washed them the best we could.

You know, we were happy kids. We didn’t set around worrying, I’m not sixteen yet, so I can’t do this or that. There was always something interesting to do.

We learned to work. If we started something, we finished it.

When I went in service I started to notice I was raised different.

Those guys set around talkin’ about how they wanted to get out Saturday night. But they just talked. They didn’t do nothin’ about nothin’.

But our life as kids wasn’t just work. We played games. In a family of ten, there was always somebody to play with. Plus, neighbor kids ended up playing at our house. We didn’t go “out” to find something to do. We had fun at home.

There was a game called “Handy-handy All Over the House.”

Some kids stood on one side of the house; some on the other.

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One kid threw a ball over the roof. When you caught it, you ran around to the other side and threw it at another kid.

Years ago, on the farm, that bath business was a real inconvenience.

Outside Shower We built a stand outside. It was taller than any of us and had a ladder clear to the top. We screwed a barrel, with a faucet, on top of the stand. Then, we climbed up the ladder and poured water into the barrel, so it trickled out the faucet.

When the sun didn’t shine and warm up the water, we washed real quick. But, you know, it worked pretty good for an outside shower—at least during the summertime.

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Monday: Wash Day

Breakfast

Ten kids living on a farm meant lots of dirty clothes. Monday was wash day. Mom washed all day long. Early on, Mom did the wash by hand. She sorted whites, colored, and really dirty overalls into separate piles. Then, she took a big stick and, one pile at a time, stirred the clothes around in hot water. After they were good and wet, she pulled them out, and scrubbed them up and down on a washboard.

Breakfast was usually oatmeal or cornmeal. You see, before cornflakes, we ate cornmeal for cereal. Some mornings Mom fried eggs in bacon grease.

Eventually, Dad bought her a wringer washer. She dumped clothes in the washer, stood next to it and worked a stick back and forth, so the barrel churned. Then, she rinsed in a big tub and cranked each piece, one at a time, through two wringer rollers that squeezed out the water.

Winter or summer, Mom hauled the heavy clothes basket outside and pinned clothes to the clothesline with little wooden clothes pins. During the wintertime, they froze solid. So, she hauled them back in the house and hung them on a rack overnight.

Next morning they were pretty good.

Tuesday: Ironing Day Tuesday was ironing day. Mom ironed all day long. First, she sprinkled the clothes with water and rolled them up tight. Then, she hooked two or three flatirons into clamps on the woodstove.

She spit on her finger and touched the bottom of one iron. If it sizzled, it was hot. She ironed with that iron ’til it cooled, set it back on the stove, and grabbed another.

Mom ironed dresses and shirts for certain. I don’t think she ironed overalls. But, whatever, we sure didn’t have no wash ’n’ wear clothes like we do nowadays.

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Mom baked seven loaves of bread a week—sometimes in round cake pans. We ate a loaf a day, but there was never enough to fix toast for breakfast. We liked Mom’s homemade bread, dripping with butter. But store-bought bread was a real treat. Today, I’d never pass up homemade bread for storebought bread. No way.

Supper Every night, for supper, Mom fixed a canned vegetable. And potatoes—always potatoes. Most nights, she cooked some kind of meat—usually homemade baloney that was about like summer sausage, but not quite. Some suppers she fixed ground beef or goulash. We usually had homemade sauerkraut.

Once in a while, Mom made pancakes with cherry sauce for supper. You see, we had cherry trees so she canned lots of cherries. We liked peaches on our pancakes, too. Every season we bought a couple crates of peaches, and Mom canned them.

For dessert Mom baked cookies or sheet cake. Sometimes we had applesauce or wild plum sauce. Once in a while, she baked a pie—usually apple or cherry.

We liked her cinnamon rolls. She rolled them up and baked them in a round cake pan. We also really, really liked her kuchen—a German yeast-raised coffeecake.

And just think: Mom baked everything on her woodstove.

“We never threw nothin’ away.”

You know, we didn’t worry about cholesterol and what was “bad” for you. We always drank whole milk and ate real butter—margarine didn’t come in ’til about ‘42. When we put strawberries or peaches on cereal, we poured on the cream.

We loved homemade ice cream. In the wintertime, we had ice.

So we mixed eggs, cream, sugar, and vanilla and poured it in the ice cream freezer. We kids turned the crank, and before long we had ice cream. That was a real treat, because we hardly ever got to buy an ice cream cone in town.

Prayers We always had six or seven kids that set ’round the table. We folded our hands and said a common table prayer together— “Come, Lord Jesus, be our guest. Let these gifts to us be blessed.”

And, you know, when Betty and I were raising our kids we said the same prayer. Betty and I still say the same prayer today.

Sometimes we said a prayer after the meal—“Give thanks to the Lord, our God and King, for He is good. His mercy endures forever.”

Cherry Stones Our mealtimes were kinda’ fun. We all set around the table and talked. And, you know, that cherry sauce I told you about? Well, Mom made it from canned whole cherries that still had stones.

You see, sometimes we ran cherries through a pitter. Mom used those cherries for baking.

But she made cherry sauce out of cherries that still had stones.

You see, it was quicker to leave the stones in and there was something about them that added flavor. Anyway, you stacked stones on your spoon. Then, the other kids had to guess how many you had. That was always so funny.

Great Depression The Great Depression started in ’29, after Black Tuesday—the day the stock market crashed. Lots of people in the big cities committed suicide. It was that bad, you know.

It didn’t really affect us, because we lived on a farm and raised our own food. We had plenty of milk and butter from our cows.

We ate our eggs. We butchered our roosters, hogs, and beef.

We ate canned vegetables from our garden. So even though we didn’t have no cash money, we had plenty of food.

We took our eggs to town, and the grocery store owner figured out the market price and put it toward our grocery bill. That’s how we got flour, sugar, crackers, peanut butter—you know, things we didn’t grow.

Town kids came out to the farm, and Mom cooked for them.

Boy did they eat. They were really hungry. Then, hobos came around. We called them “gypsies.” They drove into the yard with a horse and covered wagon. Mom made us kids stay in the house while she fed them.

We couldn’t afford new clothes, so we wore patched up pants and overalls. During the summertime, we went barefoot to save our shoes, so come wintertime we always had shoes and overshoes—you know, galoshes.

“…doing things together as a family means a whole lot.”

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Dorothea Lange “The Arnold Children” The Great Depression 1939

Pranks

No Spankings

Even during the Depression we had good times. Norman, Leonard, and I did some things we’d probably get thrown in jail for today!

No matter what pranks we pulled, our parents never spanked us. Never. They never even hollered at us. They just told us what we did wrong. And that’s really something else. They were nice people who knew how to raise nice kids.

You see, five or six farm cats hung out ’round the corncrib and kept mice under control. Come time to milk, they ran in the barn, and waited ’til we squirted milk in their mouths. Well, pigeons lived in the barn. We set up a box in the attic, so they could lay eggs. Well, you know how cats are—they get anywhere.

Those darn cats jumped up in the attic and ate the pigeons.

My brothers and I thought on it and decided we’d fix those cats. So we caught one and stuffed him in a sack—he had an awful time in that sack. Then, we threw him off the thirty-foot roof. He landed on his feet and walked away. But wasn’t that a terrible thing to do?

Still, we weren’t finished tormenting cats. You see, ground squirrels dug holes in the pasture. We tied a lariat lasso on one end of a fifteen-foot string. Then, we looped it over a squirrel hole, found a stick, and laid back in the grass, real quiet like.

You know, we always ate meals together. We always said prayers together. When we went to bed, Mom went with us and listened to our prayers. We said a prayer you’ve probably heard—“God, now I lay me down to sleep. I pray the Lord my soul to keep.”

When we got older, we maybe added a little concern and said, “Bless Mom and Dad.” But that was pretty much it. People today add lots more to their prayers.

Anyway, along the way I learned from my parents doing things together as a family means a whole lot.

Gophers

The squirrel didn’t think nobody was around, so he poked his head out of his hole. Quick as a bunny, we gave the stick a turn and pulled the lasso tight around his neck.

The county paid a ten-cent bounty on gophers. So Norman and me set traps. Then, we watched and waited. When a gopher sprung a trap, we cut off his feet and salted them down in a quart jar. Come fall, we carried our jars to the courthouse in town and collected our money. Every summer we trapped at least twenty gophers.

After we had three or four squirrels in our sack, we headed home and turned them loose in the granary with the cats.

Oh, my! Those cats squealed and carried on like nothin’ I ever heard. My brothers and I set back, just a listenin’ and a laughin’.

We split the money, and back then a dollar each was lots of money. Even better, we got to keep it. As I remember, we bought candy or something else we wanted—a pocketknife or maybe clothes.

“…we always had meals together.”

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You see, we had a convenience store about two miles from our place. It had a creamery next to it, where we sold our cream.

During the summertime, we hauled cream in the car; during the wintertime, we hitched up a team of horses and hauled cream in the sled.

Anyway, after the cream cans were emptied out, Norman and I walked over to the convenience store and spent our money.

We never bought candy bars. We liked penny candy—licorice and candy corn.

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Christmas We decorated our Christmas tree with strings of popcorn. Then, we added silver tinsel, red ornaments, and real candles. We didn’t worry that our tree (or house!) might burn down. We lit the candles and never thought twice.

We went to church Christmas Eve. When we got home, Mom made us sit in the car. By the time she let us in the house, the presents were under the tree. We thought Santa Claus came. But us older kids finally figured out Daddy was really Santa Claus.

So, the next year we bought presents for Dad. When we were at church, I had my friend put them under the tree. That kinda’ threw the younger ones off so they still believed in Santa Claus.

Some years, but not many, we hung stockings. You see, our grandma (Mom’s mother) lived about a hundred miles up north. We only saw her maybe twice a year. Some years, she came to our place in the fall and made us Christmas stockings.

Some years, she knitted gloves and scarves and mailed a box we opened Christmas Eve.

We opened other presents Christmas morning. We got one special toy for all of us. It was usually a windup toy—you know, like a caterpillar tractor or little car. We took turns winding it up and laughed watching it crawl over papers on the floor.

Some years, we got a sled, or wagon, or dominos, or marbles.

I especially liked marbles. Whatever it was, we only got one and had to share.

Mom made goose or duck (sometimes both), along with sweet potatoes, cranberries, and all the fixins’ for Christmas Day

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dinner. We never had turkey. I didn’t eat turkey ’til I was in service, and they served a Thanksgiving turkey dinner. I thought that was the worse meal I ate in my life. I wanted goose!

The goose was kinda’ greasy. We saved the grease in a bowl and spread it on our bread just like butter. It wasn’t healthy, but it was good.

Mom baked mincemeat pies for dessert. You see, she browned beef, mixed it up with apples and raisins, stirred in cloves, nutmeg, and cinnamon, and baked it in homemade pie shells— made with lard. You don’t get mincemeat pies anymore. But they were good. So good.

Birthdays For our birthdays, Mom baked a round layer cake—you know, two round cakes, frosted and stacked one on top of the other.

She put little candles on top, and we made a wish. I usually wished for a small toy. That’s one wish that didn’t come true, because we didn’t get birthday presents.

We did, though, get birthday spankins’. You know, one spank, for every year we were old and one more “to grow on”—all playful little swats done in fun.

Home Remedies Back in my day, we didn’t doctor much. Mom took care of us.

When we caught cold, she made mustard plaster and smeared it on our chests. It was kinda’ hot. But it felt good and, evidently, it worked.

When we got cut or had an ache, she rubbed us with Watkins Ointment, and that took care of it. We didn’t have aspirin or other pain pills, but we did have Watkins cough syrup.

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You see, a Watkins salesman came by the house every month.

He carried all kinds of stuff—vanilla, cinnamon, salve, pepper, spices, medicine—in his car. Mom bought what she wanted, and away he went. It all worked real good.

There was a time, though, even Watkins didn’t help. When my brother, Leonard, was about six, he got real sick with a ruptured appendix. We thought it might be his time.

You see, after his appendix ruptured Mom and Dad took him to the local hospital, and he had surgery. That was before antibiotics came in. Leonard got worse. So they took him clear to Mercy Hospital in Des Moines.

Mercy is a Catholic hospital. When we visited, we saw nuns wearing habits and priests wearing collars. We wondered if Leonard was going to be Catholic when he got home.

But it all turned out okay—Leonard got better AND he didn’t turn Catholic.

Life Was Different Life was different back in the olden days. I’ve seen lots of changes—TV, hot water heaters, electric furnaces. Everything is automatic. Mom would have thought an electric mixer was something else.

And, oh my, washing machines today—you just throw in your clothes and turn a knob. Then, you throw them in the dryer and turn another knob. We have frozen foods and prepared foods.

Everything is done for you. Still, life is complicated.

Back when I was a kid, it was simple living. Life had some good features. One thing was we always had meals together. Today, I’ll bet half the families never eat meals together. They’re gone doing this or that.

We were home more. We did things together. We got to know each other. Neighbors visited neighbors. They played cards together. Neighbor kids played with neighbor kids. People visited with each other before and after church. People were closer. They loved each other. They looked after each other.

Nowadays, people don’t do that. We don’t have communities anymore. Parents and their kids might be together, but they’re all talking on their phones to somebody else. I walk down the street and people have no idea who I am. They don’t care

about me. Besides that, lots of people hate everybody. We have killings and everything like that.

So, were things better when I was growing up? Some were.

Some weren’t. We didn’t have conveniences like today. But we were happy. We didn’t know about life today. We just thought, That’s the way life is, and made the best of it.

BUT if I had to go back in time, move into our farmhouse, and live like that again, I probably wouldn’t much like it.

“…We just thought, That’s the way life is, and made the best of it.”

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Pearl Harbor Attack, 1941

Service Sad Day December 7, 1941, Japan attacked Pearl Harbor. The very next day Congress declared war on Japan. The United States was officially in World War II. That was a sad day.

Another sad day was the day I got my draft notice. I don’t remember the exact date. The year was 1944. Two brothers were already in service and most of my friends either wanted to go or were already gone, so I wanted to go, too.

Still, the idea that I was gonna’ be away was sad. You see, with my brothers gone, Dad was short-handed so I needed to finish lots of work before I left.

“When I went in service I thought, This here’s my country. I need to help her out.”

Uncle Sam Anyway, I got this letter in the mail. I forgot exactly how it went, but something like, “Your friends and neighbors requested that you be drafted.” Right off, I thought, Why would they do that to ME? Of course, it wasn’t them. It was Uncle Sam. It was the same letter every guy got.

Dad kinda’ wanted me to stay home. You see, some farmers got deferred. I probably could. But I told Dad I didn’t want

to, because my friends wouldn’t like it if I stayed home. Plus I thought, This here’s my country. I need to help her out.

Then there was Betty—I’d dated her a few times, but we weren’t going steady. That’s what I wanted. I didn’t want to be in service with a girlfriend on my mind. So a month after I got my letter, I left for Army basic training and ended up in the infantry.

Buck-Naked Mom and Dad drove me to Boone. About thirty, maybe forty, guys lined up in front of City Hall, where they took our picture before we got on the bus. Families stood on the platform and waved as the bus pulled out of the station. You know, now that the day had come, I didn’t mind it so much.

It was hard, but not that bad.

We rode on down to the induction center in Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, got off the bus, and marched into a building where a sergeant made us take off all our clothes. There were stations where one doctor checked this and another doctor checked that. All those buck-naked guys would make a good movie!

Anyway, next they measured us for clothes—pants, shirts, shoes, underwear, hats. Everything. Then, we took a physical.

Some guys didn’t pass. They got a 4-F on their pass card and were sent home.

I passed and was sent on for my haircut. We lined up in front of a barbershop and waited. (You always wait in the Army!) Four, maybe five, barbers were inside with clippers. They sheared off my hair, right down to the scalp. All my pretty black hair was gone. That was a real sad day.

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Foxhole

Bivouac

At first, basic training was difficult. Real difficult. Everything was new. That was the first time I was away from my family.

It was the same for most guys. I had buddies, and we talked to each other. That helped—some.

Now let me tell you about the time I got in trouble . . . We was on bivouac—that’s when we went out in the field and lived in pup tents. Well, we had all kinds of problems and wanted more to eat than the Army gave us.

The Army knew lonely guys could be a problem. So they kept us real busy. As it turned out, we didn’t have time to get lonesome, because we had too many things to learn.

I looked around and spotted a little country store about a mile away. It was night. Real dark. So I said to my buddies, “The only way to get to that store is to take a compass reading.” Lucky we did, because come to find out we had to tromp through timbers. But we made it back.

For one, we had to march—right . . . left . . . right . . . left.

Before long, we were issued rifles. I shot guns at home, so my rifle wasn’t new to me. But most guys knew nothin’ about guns.

Then, we learned to dig a foxhole, because that’s where we lived during the war. The drill sergeant marched a hundred soldiers out to a field the size of a football field and said, “Get diggin’!

A tank’s gonna’ drive through here in an hour. You’d better be down in your hole by then or else.”

My brothers and I dug holes at home. I could really dig. I grabbed my trench shovel and dug like a madman. I sure didn’t want that tank to run me over! In no time, I’d shoveled dirt out of a nice straight hole.

When the drill sergeant came ’round to check holes, he called the guys over to see mine. I was the only guy who got it done.

That was pretty darn good.

All in all, it took a while to get used to everything. But the guys who trained us really knew how to train.

“I lived with what I had and did what I was supposed to do ’til it was time to leave.”

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The problem was Army officers knew to watch out for that kind of stuff. We got caught. Our punishment was cleaning everybody’s rifle. We didn’t care. We already ate the food!

Never Did Learn to Swim After basic, the Army let me go home for a short leave. Then, I got on a train and rode to a camp in San Francisco. Among other things, we had to show we could swim. I couldn’t swim—I was a farm boy from Iowa, you know. Well, if you couldn’t swim, the Army wouldn’t give you a pass to town. You had to stay in camp while your buddies cut up.

I thought, Now what am I gonna’ do? I sure didn’t want to stay in camp, because my next orders were to ship out overseas.

Well, one of my buddies could swim real good. We made a plan—you see, when a guy climbed out of the pool he stood there with a pad that had his name and all his history, and the sergeant asked him questions. My buddy said, “Give me your pad. I know your answers.” It worked. I got my pass to town.

After the war my buddy said, “I always worried, because if our ship sunk you would drown.”

I said, “Yeah? Well, everybody else would drown, too!” I could dig a hole, but I sure couldn’t swim. Never did learn.

Anyway, going to town was something else. We rode the bus in and drank a few beers. There were thousands of soldiers and about fifty girls. Still, we liked lookin’!

Really in the War We stayed in camp a week before they loaded us on a troop ship that handled about five thousand troops. Bunks were stacked four or five high, one on top of the other. Lots of guys got seasick. Lucky I never did.

We steamed out of ’Frisco to New Guinea, where they unloaded crates of supplies and mail but wouldn’t let us off the ship. From there, we went on to the Philippines. The harbor was full of sunken Japanese ships. That’s the first time I really understood there was a war goin’ on, and I was in it.

Picked Me First We landed in the San Fabian area of Luzon. Our mission was to liberate the Philippines. We got off the ship and climbed into landing boats that took us to shore. From there, trucks took us to what was a kinda’ camp—more of a sortin’ soldiers out spot.

You see, companies were already in combat. So from this camp, they hauled us out into the jungle where companies were stationed. I remember looking down and seeing telephone wires strung on the ground. That’s how companies communicated with each other, you know.

Anyway, we got to the first company and the sergeant said to the officer in charge, “Here they are, sir. Take as many as you want.” Guess what? He picked me first. I suppose they had to take somebody. I didn’t care. I had to go someplace, might as well be Weapons, 4th Platoon.

Sergeant First Class Hubert Peter

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bombs hit the ground, they exploded fire. By the time it was all over about seventeen thousand soldiers (Japanese, American, and Filipino) were dead. That wasn’t very nice, was it? I know it was mean. But, then, that’s war.

Anyway, our division moved so fast we was nicknamed “Tropic Lightning.” When we went out huntin’ Japanese, we occasionally came on a whole bunch of them. They were scattered around, either hiding or dug in. You see, there were lots of places to hide in the jungle.

Sometimes we shot. It all depended what we ran into. Mostly, guys with rifles did the shooting, but if they needed more firepower us guys with machine guns got called in.

A squad leader points out a suspected Japanese position at edge of Balete Pass, near Baugio, Luzon, P.I., where troops of the 25th Inf. Div. are in fierce combat with the enemy

Tropic Lightning The 4th Platoon had motors, bazookas, and machine guns.

I was assigned a .30 caliber light machine gun. Most every day, we were sent out to the jungle to wade through rice paddies and look for Japs. You see, the Japs had a plan. So we had to know where they were and where they were moving. It was kinda’ like huntin’ rabbits, except each rabbit had a gun.

You had to be real careful.

Eventually, the Japs made it to a patch of forest called Balete Pass. I guess they thought they were safe. There was so much growth in the jungle we couldn’t see them, and they couldn’t see us. They probably thought we couldn’t hunt them down.

We did.

After our troops moved out, about a hundred planes flew over and dropped what was called “jelly bombs.” When the jelly

One day, my company was marching along in rank when we came to a hanging swing bridge made out of rope. We were goin’ right along—left . . . right . . . left . . . right—just like we were supposed to. Well, with every step we took, the bridge swayed back and forth, more and more ’til pretty soon it was out of control. So there was nothin’ to do but break rank, quit marching, and just walk.

I never knew for sure if I killed a Jap. Nobody did. I did know they were dead. One thing always bothered me: The Japs couldn’t help it that I was shooting at them. I felt sorry knowing some mother would get a letter saying her son was dead. I didn’t think that was very nice. Japs were people, just like we were.

They didn’t have a choice, you know. But, then, neither did we.

I wasn’t afraid. Some guys really freaked out. They kinda’ cried and said, “I can’t do this anymore. I gotta’ get out of here.”

Right back at them I said, “Go on, now. Stand in back of the line.” But they didn’t want to be in back of the line, or anywhere.

I figured I’d get out of it somehow. And I did.

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Living Conditions Living conditions weren’t too bad, except it was hot, humid, and rained a lot. During the war, we slept in foxholes. After the war, we slept in tents.

We ate C-rations or K-rations—wet food in small tin cans. C-ration supper cans had one of three things: meat and beans, meat and potato hash, or meat and vegetables. Then, we got one can with biscuits and dessert—maybe chocolate fudge—and one can with instant coffee.

Most times the paper labels fell off, so you didn’t know what you were getting. K-rations had cigarettes, so I started smoking. Might as well, you know. We opened the cans with our knives and ate the food cold. I got kinda’ tired of the same thing all the time and missed milk and mashed potatoes. But I tried not to think about it.

I liked getting mail. The folks wrote. Sometimes other relation wrote. I got a few letters from Betty. I wrote her some, too. But I never wrote many letters. It was kinda’ hard to write, because of conditions in the jungle—you had to find something to write on and something to write with. Then, because of secrecy, your mail was read at the mail outlet house. You couldn’t say much except, “I’m okay. Don’t worry.”

“Mostly, guys with rifles did the shooting, but if they needed more firepower us guys with machine guns got called in.”

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Platoon Sergeant I was in the Philippines two years and direct combat about four months. At the end, I was a platoon sergeant in the 25th Division, 27th Combat Infantry Regiment. That was pretty darn good.

I earned an infantry combat badge and three bronze stars. You see, for each accomplishment you got a star. I got one when we liberated the Philippines, one for taking part in the Pacific war, and one for relief work in Japan. (You see, after the war we went on to Japan to keep order.)

We never did see celebrities in a USO show. They didn’t come out where we were, because it was too risky. I was in the Philippines two years, without getting off the island or havin’ any entertainment. But, you know, I lived with what I had and did what I was supposed to do ’til it was time to leave.

Japan I don’t remember how I heard the war ended. The company commander probably got the news over the telephone, because the government always communicated with telephones. Then, he probably announced it over loudspeakers or hung up signs on bulletin boards.

I do remember planes dropping leaflets for Japs to read. They’d pick up one of those leaflets and walk toward us holding it out so we could see they weren’t a threat. Some surrendered and became prisoners of war. That’s what they were supposed to do, you know. That worked pretty good. But some never did come out of the jungle.

Anyway, after the war ended, we loaded up on a ship and took off for Japan. I was there about six months. It was quite an experience. When most people think about Japan, they think about the battles and injuries. But I really liked Japan.

The Japanese people were poor. But they were nice, good people. American soldiers got paid fifty, sixty, maybe seventyfive dollars, a month. The Japanese thought we were rich. We weren’t. I want to tell you something real important . . . The Japanese dictator was the reason America got in the war. It wasn’t the Japanese people.

Noritake China I really liked Japanese Noritake china. So I bought twelve place settings and shipped them home in a wooden crate. I paid about ninety dollars for all one hundred and fifty pieces. That was cheap. Nowadays, Noritake China costs about twenty dollars per piece.

I gave it to Mom. But I told her if I ever got married I wanted it. Well, I did get married. Betty and I still have that china. It’s up in a cupboard. Betty never did let us use it.

“Auld Lang Syne” I was gone three years total—six months training, two years in the Pacific theater, and six months in Japan. When it was time to go home, we boarded ship in Nagano Harbor. The night before we sailed I stood on deck, looking out over Japan. I saw a bunch of men walking down a trail toward our ship. Of course, I wondered what was wrong.

Well, as they got closer, I heard them singing “Auld Lang Syne,” in Japanese no less. But no matter what the language it’s the meaning that counts: “We’ll drink a cup of kindness 41

yet for times gone by.” I thought that was darn nice. It made me feel good—almost better than landing in the United States. Here’s something real important I learned along the way: People are people, no matter where they might be.

When our ship docked in ’Frisco, they took us to the barracks and told us, “Whatever you do, don’t take off on your own.

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Be sure you are always with a couple other guys. Otherwise, you’ll get robbed.”

I couldn’t believe it. In Japan when we wanted to go uptown, we just went uptown. Nobody bothered us. But back in the States, Americans—our own people—would beat us all to hell.

Real Lucky The best part about being back in the States was arriving home and seeing Mom and Dad standing in the yard watching for me. You see, my brother was already out of service. So he drove to Chicago and picked me up. When we drove up to the house, Mom and Dad gave me a big hug. I was happy. But I was sad. Not everybody got a chance to hug their parents, you know.

You know, it’s kinda’ hard to tell you what really happened.

You gotta’ be there. I saw a movie on World War II called Saving Private Ryan. When it first came out, I didn’t know if I could watch it. I did. That movie is about as real as you can get without being real. Watch it. That’s war.

And that’s all I’m gonna’ say.

Four brothers, besides me, served during World War II. One brother was a medic in Great Britain. He was on shore taking care of the wounded during the Normandy invasion. He told me that the first day not a single American soldier survived.

That was terrible.

Another brother was in the field artillery. He told me about the Battle of the Bulge in Berlin. The Germans threw every weapon they had at the Allied soldiers. They had to scramble like heck to get out. They finally advanced far enough to turn back and go against the Germans. That was terrible.

My two other brothers told about terrible things, too. But none of us was even wounded. Nothing. My family was lucky. Real lucky. That was quite a blessing, you know.

Good Job I didn’t go in service for medals or anything like that. I was just doin’ my best to get America out of the war. I think we did a good job. I guess the government made good use of some of us, because we got things done.

“People are people, no matter where they might be.”

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Betty and Hubert

Betty Best One

All Flustered After a while, we started dating. We went roller skating.

Sometimes, but not too often, we went to the show Sunday night. But we didn’t go out much before I went in service.

Just Friends

When I got out, we started dating again. You see, when I first got out of service, I had to go into Boone and deliver reports.

Mom would say kinda’ casual like, “Why don’t you go to the bakery? Betty works there.” I thought, Why not? I just might do that. So I stopped in the bakery and got Betty all flustered.

That’s how girls were when boys came back from war, you know.

I can’t tell you that Betty and I really “met.” We went to the same church—Saint Paul’s Lutheran—and from the time we were in about the seventh grade, we were in the same youth group—Walther League. So, while we were growing up, we kinda’ knew each other.

Well, one day I called her up and asked her if she wanted to go to the show. She said, “Yes!” right off. Shortly after, we dated regular. Neither one wanted to date anybody else. Pretty soon we thought we could get married. It’s kinda’ crazy, but that’s how it all started.

Betty was skinny. Real petite. Still is. She was a nice looking girl, with real blue eyes. She had a nice personality. So put that together, I gotta’ tell you I noticed it. Actually, I kinda’ liked it.

Plus, not too many girls went to our church, so the selection wasn’t that great.

And it’s been Betty forever.

Come June 20, 2013, Betty and I been married sixty-five years. My mother was from a family of ten girls, and my Dad got the best one. My Betty was from a family of one girl, and I got the best one.

Betty looked at me like she liked me. You just kinda’ know when a girl gives you “that look.” We played checkers and Bingo with the other kids. Then, we set there and ate lunch and talked. As time went by, we got more acquainted.

Plus, I was friends with her brother. Betty probably thought she could get to know me easier because I knew her brother.

I’m not sure what her strategy was. I guess I was kinda’ good looking. I liked to do funny things—you know, play jokes.

Anyway, we started out as just friends who liked being together.

No Chances We went together close to a year before we got engaged. I don’t remember how I asked her, but it wasn’t nothin’ fancy. I do remember Betty didn’t say yes right off. She had to talk to her mother. But pretty soon, though, she said it was alright.

After Betty said she’d marry me, I had to buy her a ring. I wasn’t going to take no chances before that, you know. I had saved up some money when I was in service. So I went out and paid probably a hundred dollars for her ring. It was a nice ring, and in those days, that was a good buy. Years later, I upgraded to a really, really nice diamond. That ring is probably the thing Betty is most proud of.

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Shortly after I bought the ring, Betty had a birthday party.

Her brother, my brother, and other friends came. I took Betty aside and gave her the ring. Then, we went back to the party and said, “Look! We’re engaged.” Everybody was real excited.

Wedding Day We got married June 20, 1948, in Saint Paul’s Lutheran Church.

It wasn’t fancy, but it was a real nice ceremony. Betty had two bridesmaids, and I had a best man and a groomsman.

A friend made a sound recording of our wedding for my dad.

You see, Dad was in the hospital. He’d been there a long time and never did get out. He played that recording every day. That’s what he liked. As a matter of fact, I still got it somewhere.

We had our reception in the church dining hall. It was a program—this one talked and that one sang. No dancing. We had food—pretty standard stuff—sandwiches, baked beans, potato salad, and wedding cake.

Everybody drank fruit punch. You see, it was a church so we couldn’t have beer. We weren’t lucky enough to have Jesus come to our wedding and turn water into wine. But if He did, it would have been pretty darn good!

Honeymoon I made reservations at a hotel in Des Moines, and that’s where we spent our wedding night. Then, we went to the Colorado Mountains for our honeymoon. It was crazy, but that’s what we wanted to do. You see, in those days we didn’t know hardly nothin’ about nothin’. But we had relations in the area, so we stayed at this one’s house and that one’s house. We drove up in the mountains and saw the glaciers and the falls and ended up having a good time and a nice honeymoon.

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And, you know, sixty-five years later Betty and I still have a good time. When you’re married you gotta’ get along. If something isn’t working right, fix it. Betty and I are pretty much alike. We never argue. We always go to church together, and that makes a marriage stronger, you know.

Dementia Betty’s had dementia going on about four years now. When I first noticed her kinda’ forgetting things, I told her she should see a neurologist. She said, “Why? Do you think there’s something wrong with ME? Are YOU going, too?” Anyway, I don’t think it would have made any difference.

I just never know what might come up. Betty says things I don’t take seriously. Just the other day she said, “Still got your girlfriend?”

I said, “No. I married YOU.” I don’t know where she got that idea. The doctor says her brain isn’t functioning like it should.

Effort When Betty’s dementia got real bad, I had to put her in a nursing home. But I go see her every day. We have lunch together and I stay most of the afternoon and just set there with her.

Then, I keep busy. There’s always work to do. I don’t like feeling down, so I figure out what to do to get out of it.

It’s like anything else—maybe somebody did something or said something that’s eatin’ on you. Well, along the way I learned you gotta’ figure out what brought on your bad feelings. Then, you gotta’ drop it—get rid of it. You gotta’ let the Lord take care of it—that’s best, you know

Mr. and Mrs. Hubert Peter Wedding Day, June 20, 1948

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Then, you gotta’ get out and do something. Anything. I read, or do Sudoku. Sometimes I cook. You see, when I was growing up Mom gave all the kids—even the boys—a turn at cooking. So I kinda’ know how to cook. Truth is, I can fix most everyday things.

I like to make German goulash, with hamburger, chili beans, onions, and tomatoes. I also like to make potato soup. One time, I baked an apple pie from canned apples. But just the other day my brother gave me some green apples, and I’m gonna’ make a real apple pie. That will be fun.

When my son Terry was growing up, he liked roast beef and mashed potatoes. So I can make good roast beef or roast pork or pork chops. I guess being in the meat locker business those are naturals.

Then, lots of times I just got to bed and get a good night’s rest.

It’s not easy, you know. But you gotta’ put effort in it.

Terry and Karla

Well, this kid never amounted to much. That’s because of his parents. And it ain’t just this kid. Parents are what’s wrong with the world today. Something I learned along the way is parents gotta’ care.

Start With Parents

Proud

Now I want to tell you about being a parent . . . I blame parents for the way things are in this day and age. Parents today are terrible. They don’t know what their kids are doing. They don’t care. If life is gonna’ get better, it’s gotta’ start with parents.

I’m proud of Terry for lots of reasons. One thing, he works. He makes his own living. He’s respected. He respects other people.

He never lies. He makes an honest living. Both our kids are that way. They don’t cheat nobody. They don’t steal.

Parents Gotta’ Care

Karla is the same as Terry. I’m proud of her, too. She respects us and we respect her. She works. She pays her own way. The job is important to her.

When Terry and Karla were growing up, Betty and I knew where they were, and they knew where we were. We cared about each other.

Let me tell you a story about what happened to a kid whose parents didn’t care . . .

Terry made a butterfly collection for school. I worked with him on it. He worked alone on it. It was real, real nice. Well, his friend asked to borrow it. Terry let him. But he never got it back.

One day, about fifteen years later, I saw this kid and asked him how come he never returned Terry’s butterfly collection.

He said, “The last day of school I got to drinkin’, got drunk, dropped it, and it broke.”

When I asked him why he did what he did, he looked me right in the eye and said, “You know, Mr. Peter, when I got home from school, my parents weren’t there. They were at the bar.

When I went to bed, they still weren’t home. When I got up the next morning, they were still in bed. I could go a whole week and never see my parents.”

Terry and Karla learned their hard work ethic from me and Betty. I’m not sayin’ you gotta’ work yourself to death, but I do think you gotta’ have a job and not be afraid to work. Nowadays, way too many people think, That’s too hard, and just give up.

Kids are getting so they don’t know how to work. They don’t have nothin’ to do. They have machines they play with— phones and computers—stuff like that. They just set there, punch in this and that, and look at their machines, instead of looking at people.

There are still lots of good people. The whole world hasn’t gone to pot, yet. But sad to say, it is going in the wrong direction.

“I’m not sayin’ you gotta’ work yourself to death, but I do think you gotta’ have a job and not be afraid to work.”

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Karla (back), Terry, Betty, Hubert

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Karla

Hubert and Betty in Peter family living room

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Left to right: Hubert, Karla, Terry, Betty on family trip

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Best Friends

Good Parents

But let me back up . . . Terry was born in 1951, and Karla was born in 1956. Our home was in Boone County, where Betty and I still live. From the very first, I liked being a dad. It was really fun. When they were babies, they were so nice to hold.

Betty and I were always involved in Terry and Karla’s lives. We were always home. We were good parents. And that’s why they are the fine, good people they are today. They learned from us.

Then, as they grew, it was fun watching them learn to do things.

Even today when I see a little kid with a happy face because he’s just starting to walk, I have fun watchin’ him. Anyway, my kids are my good friends. They’re the best friends I’ll ever have.

I tried to be a good dad. I knew I was responsible for my kids.

I’ll tell you a story . . . When I got out of service, I smoked.

Then, when Karla came along, I quit. You see, I didn’t feel good setting there, holding her, smoking a cigarette. When I tell Karla that story, it makes her feel good. I should have quit when Terry was born, but I didn’t realize how important it was not to smoke.

“Besides learning from your parents, you gotta’ learn how God wants you to live.”

My parents were the same way. When I was growing up, I thought the world of Mom and Dad. And without even questioning it, I know our kids feel the same way about me and Betty.

Along the way I learned what it means to be a good parent.

I’ll tell you . . . You gotta’ be close to your kids. You gotta’ be there for them. Your kids gotta’ feel free to talk to you. They gotta’ mind you. You don’t want them to do stuff and then try to hide it. You don’t want them to depend on someone else to learn things.

We always went to church as a family. That’s the way I grew up, and, in turn, that’s the way Terry and Karla grew up. Church is important. Besides learning from your parents, you gotta’ learn how God wants you to live.

Eastern view from Peter family home

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You should have at least one meal together every day, where you all set there at the table and talk. That’s how I was raised, so I know it’s important. When Terry and Karla were growing up, we always set at the table for dinner and supper—lunch and dinner.

No matter what you call it, we set there together. We always said our table prayer before we ate. Sometimes we held hands.

Sometimes we didn’t. No matter. Our prayer was important.

Still is. We talked. We tried to avoid television, unless there was a football game going on!

We took vacations together. About every other year, we went to Leech Lake, Minnesota, and rented a cabin for a week. Irene and Virgil Moeller were great friends. Their kids were about the same ages as ours, so sometimes they went with us. Terry liked to fish and was good at it, so we fished a lot. We played in the water. We bummed around. We just enjoyed each other.

One year, Betty and I took our kids out to Yellowstone. That was real nice. You know, family vacations are special because you’re together all the time. You really get to know more about each other.

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Leech Lake, Minnesota

Holidays Betty’s side was great at getting together for holidays. When my mother was still living, we went to one side Thanksgiving Day and Christmas Day and the other side that Sunday. It was nice because kids on both sides of the family got to see each other.

My mother loved it. She was kinda’ handicapped from arthritis, so she just set there in her chair. But she was on top of the world when she saw her grandkids. Every year, Mom gave each grandkid an envelope with a dollar in it. They still talk about getting a dollar from Grandma.

It’s kinda’ sad because Betty and I don’t continue that tradition with our grandkids. You see, they don’t live around us. Terry and Karla live in Florida. It’s hard to get together. Plus, they’ve been divorced, so they got other sides too, you know.

Divorce is hard on kids, hard on parents, hard on grandmas and grandpas. Things change. We don’t see each other much. That’s too bad. They don’t realize what they’re missing.

Work Life

Montgomery Ward. Then, she did bookkeeping when we owned the Stanhope Locker. (I’ll tell you that story later.) She ended up being a good bookkeeper. The point is, Betty made the best of things along the way. Always.

Made the Best of Things

Jack Sprat’s Grocery Store

After Betty and I got married, we lived in a small, upstairs apartment in Algona, Iowa. Algona is about seventy-five miles north of Boone. It’s kinda’ interesting that during World War II, ten thousand Germans were prisoners at Camp Algona.

Their job was to work on farms owned by Americans who were in service.

Now I’ll tell you about me . . . When I got out of service, jobs were tight, because thousands of guys were discharged at the same time. Well, I saw this ad in the paper. The Super Value store in Boone needed a meat cutter. The ad said they’d train.

I talked to my dad, and he liked the idea. So, I decided to find out what the owner had to say. He liked me. I liked him. He hired me and started me out at twenty-seven dollars and fifty cents a week.

Our apartment had four rooms—kitchen, living room, bedroom, bathroom. Betty got a chance to work as a bookkeeper for Druggist Mutual Insurance Company of Iowa. It was a nice company that sold low-cost insurance and gave fair claim service to pharmacists. She liked her job a lot.

You see, when Betty was in school, she really liked typing. That was one of her favorite things. She could type sixty words a minute, without mistakes. And that’s back in the days when typewriters had a lever she had to fling when she reached the end of each line.

Betty wanted to go to business school after she graduated Stanhope High School. It didn’t work out, because her dad wasn’t in favor of it. It’s kinda’ hard to go to school if you don’t get some backing, you know. Betty’s dad was real strict and didn’t think girls needed an education. But, back then, that’s the way it was for lots of girls.

So, after high school Betty worked at a bakery in Boone. Then, she went into bookkeeping. Her first job was at Arnold Motor— an auto supply store in Boone. Then, she did bookkeeping at

I put in lots of time—fifty, even sixty, hours a week was nothin’.

Still, I was always broke. Well, I heard about a guy up in Algona who owned Jack Sprat’s Grocery Store. He was looking for a meat cutter.

Algona was only about an hour and a half from our place. So, one Sunday afternoon Betty and I drove up to see him. We got to talking. He liked that I knew how to cut meat. One thing led to another and before we left, he said he’d start me out at one hundred dollars a week. I could hardly believe it. That’s how Betty and I ended up in Algona.

Hubert’s We lived in Algona about a year before we came back to Boone County. You see, Betty’s dad owned land with an empty schoolhouse. We talked and decided to fix up the schoolhouse and convert it to a gas station and convenience store. We didn’t own it. We rented from Betty’s dad.

“…Betty made the best of things…”

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Iowa has what’s called “Casey’s General Store.” They’re convenience stores out in the country that sell gasoline, groceries, milk, coffee, wine, beer, pop—that kind of stuff. It’s kinda’ interesting that Donald Lamberti—the guy who started Casey’s —named them after his gas supplier and friend, Kurvin C. (K.C.) Fish. Not many people know that story.

Anyway, our store wasn’t a Casey’s, but it was like one. Ours was a Phillip’s 66. Think of it like a 7-Eleven. You see them stores everywhere. We named our store after me. People called it different things—“Hube’s,” or “Hubies,” sometimes “Hubert’s.”

Hubert’s was a service station, out in the country. We sold gas, tires, and car parts. We also sold staple items—you know,

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flour, sugar, salt, milk, canned goods, along with treats like candy, ice cream, ice cream bars. And pop. Lots of pop.

You see, we were eight miles from town. It wasn’t easy to get to town, so kids came to the station to buy treats. It was kinda’ fun to watch them come up in the evening and buy ice cream or pop. They were just as happy as could be. Let me tell you something . . . Those kids had it a lot better than I did when I was a kid.

Farmers bought stuff, too—things they didn’t grow. You know, cigarettes, tobacco, candy bars, potato chips—I forget what all, but stuff like that.

We had a pool table and a couple card tables in the backroom. Guys came in at night and on rainy days and set there playing cards, smoking, making lots of noise—you know, just having fun.

in the store some, but not too often. She didn’t like the guys carrying on. Plus, by then, Terry came along, so she had to take care of him. Still, if I really needed an out, she came in and worked it.

I opened up at seven o’clock in the morning. I closed about nine o’clock at night—maybe earlier if it was kinda’ quiet. I was the only one who worked the store. It was hard, hard work. Real demanding. A long day—too long.

I liked Hubert’s, but I sure didn’t like everything about it. You see, farmers got lots of flat tires. They brought them in, and I fixed them. After a while, that got to be too much.

Betty and I lived in a Quonset hut—one of those sevenhundred-square-foot, rounded buildings made out of corrugated galvanized steel—behind the store. Betty worked

I ran Hubert’s for sixteen years before I sold the inventory and equipment to Co-op Oil Company. They ran it pretty much the same way I did.

It was time for me to move on.

Hubert’s including outhouse and Quonset hut where family lived

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Fairway Grocery I got a job as a meat cutter at Fairway Grocery store, over in Webster City, Iowa. It was a good place to work. I worked three or four hours a day in the backroom cutting meat. Then, I put the meat on display in the meat case.

You see, Fairway had a service meat counter, where customers came to the meat case and picked out what they liked—pork chops, steaks, roasts—whatever we had that day. I really liked it.

I always liked cutting meat, you know.

AAL

You see, farmers transported animals they’d raised to us in trucks. We had a holding pen, where they unloaded. We drove the animals into the building and stunned them with a stun gun. (A stun gun is like a rifle, with a different type of shell.)

Then, we stuck them. After they bled-out, we hung them on hooks above the track, dressed-out the insides, washed down the outsides, and sent them on their way to the cooler.

The track rolled the butchered animals around to the cooler out back. The cooler was tall inside. It had to be. We left pigs hanging to chill-down two days and beef ten, maybe twelve, days. Pork is a softer meat, so it can’t take standing around, because it doesn’t age well.

I can’t tell you why, but after Fairway I went to work as an insurance agent for AAL, that’s the Aid Association for Lutherans, back in Boone. I didn’t work for them long. I didn’t like it. You see, they had me doing lots of night work. I couldn’t deal with people at night. I wasn’t cut out for it. So, I went back into meat cutting, and that’s what I did for the rest of my working days.

Stanhope Locker Betty and I bought Stanhope Locker—paid sixty-five thousand dollars on a land contract (kinda’ like a mortgage) for inventory and equipment. It was a big building, maybe one hundred fifty feet wide and one hundred feet long. It was at 465 Parker Street in Stanhope and ran all the way from Eighth Street to the back of the alley.

Most people don’t know what a meat locker is. Well, I’ll tell you . . . Folks bring in live cows, pigs, lambs, goats, deer (we got mostly cows and pigs), and the locker butchers the animals and packages the meat. So a meat locker is a meat processing plant that does custom butchering. Now you know.

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Hubert Peter at Stanhope Locker

Anyway, after the meat chilled the right number of days, we took it out of the cooler and cut it up. The customer told us how they wanted their meat packaged. Say with a pig— How many pork chops? How many chops per package? How much bacon? How much sausage? How much ground pork?

We had a smokehouse, so if a customer wanted their meat cured, we did it.

Each customer was different. Some might even want to share their meat with another family. We did exactly what they asked us to do. That’s important, you know.

After the meat was ready, we called up the customer. They picked up their meat and stored it in their freezer. We didn’t see them for probably another year. You see, they had a freezer full of meat. They were happy. We were happy.

We had seven employees. Me and another guy butchered. Four girls trimmed, ground, packaged, and wrapped. Betty took care of the sales counter, kept the books, and wrapped whenever she had time.

There were a thousand odd jobs around the locker. Nobody just stood around. Never.

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Watermelon Day Watermelon Day was a really big deal in town—food, rides, games, entertainment, music, fireworks, free ice cold water melon, all kicked off by a parade. People loved it, so ’course I wanted to do something special.

Each year, I came up with an idea, and we built some kind of a float. Well, remember the year the whiskey bottle came out that was in the shape of a hog settin’ on his rump? It was called “WhistlePig—The Boss Hog” and only twenty-four barrels were bottled. I got to thinkin’, now, that’s really special.

So I butchered a hog—took the insides out but didn’t scrape off the hair, or skin it, or anything else. Then, I fixed it to look just like the whiskey bottle hog, got a post-like piece of lumber to

Hubert, Nathan, Betty Watermelon Day Parade

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hold it in place, and stuck it in the freezer ’til it froze solid.

It was settin’ there just as nice as could be—its head was up in the air and everything was just right.

When it come time for the parade, we took this hog out of the freezer and set it on the float. Well, it was summertime. Hot. Pretty soon, the frost started comin’ out of this hog, and it got all white with frost. I thought this ain’t gonna’ work at all.

Well, lucky for me, the frost started meltin’, and the hog got all wet. It looked as real as could be. Nobody could figure out how I ever done that. They called it the “Iowa Hog.” After the parade, we thawed the hog, skinned him, and ground him into sausage. But at least that old hog got his one day of fame.

Awards I’m proud to tell you we won awards. You see, the State Fair ran contests. We cut the meat at the locker and took it to the fair for judging. I usually got first place with a ham or bacon.

Sometimes, with dried or smoked beef and turkey.

After judges gave out ribbons, they hung the meat in a cooler and showed it off. Everybody could see who got a blue ribbon for first place, a red ribbon for second place, or a white ribbon for third place. I almost always got a blue ribbon. That was nice.

I don’t remember how many awards I got. I do remember I had Grand Champion bacon. You see, judges go by color, trim, smell, how the meat is cured, and how nice it looks in the package. Then, they cut a sample, cook it, and taste it.

After awards, the meat was auctioned off. The money went to the Iowa State meat department. A slab of bacon weighed seven, maybe nine, pounds and brought in over a thousand dollars.

Sometimes I entered contests run by the Meat Processing Association—an association of Iowans who owned meat processing plants. There must have been a hundred twenty-five, maybe a hundred fifty, of us. Everybody brought product to enter in the contest. I took ham and bacon and dried beef to that show. I won fifteen, maybe twenty, plaques. That’s pretty darn good.

“Each customer was different…We did exactly what they asked us to do. That’s important, you know.”

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Business Lessons I really liked cutting meat. I liked it because I did a good job. I liked it because it made people happy. I’m not trying to brag. Still, I’m the type of person to run a business. The locker was very successful.

The meat locker business is a good place to learn business lessons. If you run a locker right, if you do a good job, it’s a place you can learn about business and learn about people, no matter what business you might want to try. And, you know, along the way I learned lots of business lessons I want to tell you.

First, you gotta’ provide good service. Then, you gotta’ do a good job—when you cut meat, you cut it like it’s supposed to be cut. Say, you cut a T-bone steak. When the customer sees it, they recognize, right off, it’s a T-bone. We did a nice job cutting and wrapping meat. It really looked good.

You gotta’ keep your business clean. The locker was very clean.

It looked nice. It looked organized. That’s important, you know.

Now, I want to tell you about the customer . . . You gotta’ treat people good. Real good. We treated every customer like they were our only customer. Some customers came to us after they went to two or three other plants. We had to do our business good enough so they chose us—so they thought we were worth it. And we were. I was very particular. We never slopped things together.

When customers come to see you, you gotta’ talk to them. You gotta’ present yourself well. They gotta’ feel like you are honest, and they can trust you. I learned that early on running the service station.

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It ain’t always easy, but you gotta’ do your best to please customers—Who are they? What do you know about them?

Why did they come to see you? What, exactly, do they want?

Then, be honest. Don’t just stand there and tell customers a bunch of lies. Don’t do that. Tell the truth.

Say you make a mistake. And, you know, when you got other people working for you like we did, you don’t always know what everybody does every minute. Mistakes happen. They happened at the locker.

When a customer had a problem, I came up front. (Customers want to talk to the boss, you know.) Then, I admitted our mistake. I didn’t just stand there and say, “We wouldn’t do nothin’ like that.” I made it right. Sometimes, I gave them half their money back. Sometimes, I replaced their meat. We worked it out. They walked out happy.

Then, you gotta’ know what your competition is up to. We called up other plants and got information: “How long will it take to get my cow butchered? How much do you charge?” If they said they could get us in right away, we knew they weren’t too busy.

Now here’s something real important that I learned along the way . . . If your competition does something bad, don’t do it. If they do something good, swipe it!

Not So Bad I sold Stanhope Locker when I was sixty-six years old, and Betty and I kinda’ retired. I missed people, some. I missed work, some. It was fun to cut meat and make it look good.

Sometimes, I went back and worked a few hours, but mostly I didn’t do much of anything.

Betty Peter at Stanhope Locker

Let me tell you what happened . . . At the time I sold, lots of lockers were for sale. I couldn’t get as much money as I thought I should. Well, sometimes the longer you wait, the better things get. Sometimes the longer you set on something, the worse things get. I knew if I waited things would get worse.

Betty said, “You’re not getting enough money.”

I said, “Maybe not. But wait ’til you see what I’m gonna’ do.”

I invested the money, thinking I’d get some growth out of it and make up for what I lost. I bought eighty acres of ground—paid nine hundred, maybe one thousand, dollars an acre. Today, it’s

worth six, maybe seven, thousand dollars an acre. That’s more than what I originally wanted from the locker. ’Course farming was in my blood. I had some idea of what I was doing. Still, it was a lucky move. I didn’t know it was going to turn out exactly like it did. I didn’t have that much foresight.

But it turned out good. Real good.

I rent the land to a farmer. He pays me so much an acre. I don’t plan to sell. I’ll keep it, unless something turns up where I really need to sell. I did sell off acreage to my friends. And, you know, I got almost what I paid for the whole farm.

Not so bad, huh?

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No Rockin’ Chair Now let me tell you what I learned along the way about retirement . . . Some people quit too quick. They got good health and should work longer.

When you retire, you gotta’ have something to do. I started golfing. Betty and I traveled.

We went all over—Canada, New Orleans, California, Orlando, Memphis. We even went on a cruise. Most times Irene and Virgil Moeller went with us. They were always real important to our family, you know.

Virgil and Irene Moeller with Hubert and Betty Peter on vacation

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Hubert and Betty on vacation

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Hubert and Betty’s flower gardens

You gotta’ find something you really like to do. You need more than just taking your wife shopping and settin’ there in the mall, you know.

I like to work outside. I like to plant stuff. I like to garden.

Sometimes, but not too often, I play cards. I read some. Then, I got these here Sudoku puzzles I like to work.

You can’t quit your job and just set in the rockin’ chair, you know.

Who would want to do that?

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West view of Saint Paul’s Lutheran Church from Peter family home

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Faith Missouri Synod Lutheran Now I want to tell what I learned along the way about faith . . .

My parents were the same faith before they got married—Missouri Synod Lutheran. Lots of Germans are Lutheran. You see, Martin Luther was a German monk who founded the Lutheran church.

He believed salvation is a gift of God’s grace. He believed people get saved by believing in Jesus. Lutherans still believe that today.

Just Pretended Anyway, Dad and Mom were very religious. Dad didn’t go around mad and swear. He would never do that. Mom wouldn’t either. I never heard either of them use a curse word. Ever.

When I was a kid, men set on one side of the church. Women set on the other side. The boys set with their dad and the girls set with their mom. But every so often Dad sent us boys to Mom’s side, because he didn’t want to put up with us anymore.

For the service we had the liturgy, the sermon, and songs.

During the wintertime, we kids played church at home.

But nobody got to be the minister and give the sermon. We just pretended.

Saint Paul’s Lutheran Church Our church—Saint Paul’s Lutheran Church— is home to me and Betty. It’s where we were baptized and confirmed, where

we met, where we got married, where we raised our kids, and where they’ll have our funerals.

Saint Paul’s has a steep roof and tall steeple. Inside there’s an upstairs, towards the back. The altar and a statue of Christ are up front. There is a lectern in the pulpit, where readers stand to give the reading and the minister stands to give the sermon.

There’s a belfry, with a bell. A strong rope hangs down the shaft. The bell ringer pulls it to tip the bell’s hammer. He rings it different times for different things. The Lord’s Prayer gets three rings. During a funeral, he rings it once for every year the person lived.

Our church used to have a pipe organ in the basement that had to be pumped by hand. Then, when electricity came in, they got an electric organ. That was a big deal, but I still liked the pipe organ.

No Weeds in Heaven You know, I can’t say I have a favorite part of the church service.

I like it all—the Psalms, the sermon, Bible readings, prayers.

When I was a kid, we learned prayers by heart. I still say them.

From the time I was a kid, the thing that sticks with me most about faith is when I die, I want to go to heaven. I always thought heaven was important. The world will come to an end and people—some people—will get into heaven.

I ain’t never seen heaven. Nobody has. It’s hard to say exactly what it’s like. But I think it’s a beautiful place. I imagine lots of stars and pretty gardens. People always talk about apple trees.

I don’t know if heaven has apple trees or not. But it probably doesn’t have any weeds. I guess I’ll just have to wait and see.

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Ticket to Heaven Along the way I figured out how to get to heaven. It’s kinda’ complicated, but not really. First, you gotta’ be baptized.

That’s most important. Then, you gotta’ believe Jesus Christ really lived on earth and was crucified for your sins. That’s the ticket right there.

I really hope I get into heaven. And, you know, I think I will.

You see, I was baptized, and I’m a believer. Betty is just like me.

She’ll get into heaven, too.

It all gets down to believing God is gonna’ judge you. He already told you what you’re supposed to have and what you’re supposed to do. God already made the rules for getting into heaven. So if you follow them and ask for forgiveness, if you believe in Jesus, you’ll get into heaven, too.

Love each other. Respect each other. You see, people today don’t show how much they love each other. They don’t show enough respect. Not like we did, when we were growing up.

Here’s what to do: Express your opinion. You’re entitled to that. But don’t hit. Don’t argue. Don’t hurt each other. Stick together. Hold hands. Put your arms around each other. Just set together. That feels good, you know.

Make a home. Back on the farm we didn’t go no place to speak of. Sure, we went to town sometimes and had school every day.

But Mom didn’t have to wonder where we were. We were home.

And, you know, home was the best part of our lives.

Reflections A Thing or Two I had a good time telling my story. But I’m not finished. There are still a few things I learned along the way that I want to say . . .

I told you earlier I don’t see my children, grandchildren, and now great-grandchildren much. So in this here book I want to tell them a thing or two.

So, Terry and Karla, my children; Nathan, Michael, Lauren, Sara, and John, my grandchildren; Tallulah Erlund Peter and Paloma Erlund Peter, my great-grandchildren, here goes . . .

Paloma Erlund Peter and Tallulah Erlund Peter

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“Love each other. Respect each other.”

Left to right: Lauren, Grandpa, Sara, Grandma, John

“Here’s what to do: Express your opinion. You’re entitled to that. But don’t hit. Don’t argue. Don’t hurt each other. Stick together. Hold hands. Put your arms around each other. Just set together. That feels good, you know.”

Left to right: Nathan, Lauren, Michael

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Betty and Hubert celebrating 50th Anniversary

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Memories Now I want to talk more about me and Betty. Here’s what I hope you remember about us . . .

I want to be remembered for how I respected people. I was always honest. I always paid my own way. I never ran people down. You can’t do that, you know.

“Betty and I love each other —always did, always will.”

I also want to be remembered for hard work. Here’s the thing about hard work: Sometimes you look at a job and think, I can’t do it. It’s like painting a barn with a little bitty paintbrush—impossible.

But you can. You start, you keep at it, and first thing you know you’ve got one side done. Then, you think, That’s not so bad.

That’s what work is, you know. You gotta’ start. Then, you gotta’ finish.

Now Betty: Remember Betty for being a kind person. She never lied. She took care of our kids the way they were supposed to be taken care of.

Betty always dressed nice, like she was going to church. Even when she just went to town shopping, she got painted up.

When it was time to get groceries, she always said, “Just a minute.

I gotta’ get ready first.” A lot of people don’t do that, you know.

Betty got along with everybody. She was never really, really close to too many people. But she was good to them. She was good to me. She didn’t go about being married halfway. She felt the same about me as I did about her.

“God already made the rules for getting into heaven. So if you follow them and ask for forgiveness, if you believe in Jesus, you’ll get into heaven, too.”

What I mean is Betty and I love each other—always did, always will. That’s important, you know.

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Perfect Day You see, whenever I had a perfect day, I spent it with Betty.

We started out eating breakfast together—maybe bacon and a fried egg—special bacon for a special breakfast, you know.

Then, we might play golf. Or maybe we’d drive into Des Moines and shop. I might even get the car washed. Then, we went out to a nice restaurant for supper. We both like ribs.

Sometimes I ordered a fillet—never just a T-Bone. If they had good chicken, we might get chicken and take some home.

Betty usually had a glass of wine. I might have wine, or I might have a beer, or a mixed drink. I like whiskey and coke or whiskey and 7-Up. I don’t go too much for fancy drinks.

Then, we might go visit someone. Or we might just drive back home and watch a little TV. Then, we’d go to bed.

So, what I’m saying is I always spent a perfect day with Betty, just being together. I ain’t too good at taking off on my own, you know.

That’s It So, that’s it. These are things I learned along my way that I hope help you along your way.

Well, there is one more thing—Even when you got troubles, make every day a perfect day.

I do, you know.

And if I can, you can, too.

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Back row, left to right: Karla, Hubert, Sara Front row, left to right: Terry, Betty, Lauren

“Make every day a perfect day”

Between the Lines “Doing things together as a family means a whole lot.” ~Hubert Peter

Thank you, Terry Peter, for your vision. Be proud you took “tell Dad and Mom’s story” off the Some day list. Thank you for trusting me to be the storyteller.

Thank you, Chuck Schwabe, my husband and friend, for supporting my quest to be the best personal historian on the planet. I love you to the moon and back. You are my person.

Thank you, Enid Grigg, designer extraordinaire, for bringing Along the Way to life through compelling, caring design. Your creativity is unsurpassed.

Thank you, Dee Moustakas. Your laser-focused proofreading skills are the best, bar none.

And now, Mr. Peter . . . Thank you, Mr. Peter, for our time together. From the joy of a simple game of Sudoku to the comfort of earning a ticket to heaven, you shared meaningful life lessons. You helped me become a better person.

May God continue to bless you with love, laughter, and limitless perfect days.