ACTIVE LIFE SPECIAL SUPPLEMENT TO THE GLOBE
february 2021
STILL GOING STRONG
Ryan McGaughey/The Globe
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Shore keeps himself busy and sharp as 100th birthday approaches By Ryan McGaughey rmcgaughey@dglobe.com
remains all these years later. “My mother (Alma) somehow got to be an invalid; at the time we didn’t know what it was,” remembered Shore, whose mental acuity remains sharp at his advanced age. “So I lived up there with my grandma and grandpa. My mom passed away when I was about 6.” In 1928, Shore’s father, Chester, remarried, and earned a living doing odd jobs on farms around southeast Minnesota. The last town that the family called home before returning in 1934 to the Worthington farm was Chatfield, near Rochester. Shore graduated eighth grade from the
“Middagh School,” a country school located across the road from WORTHINGTON — property owned by the Bob Shore is set to mark Middagh family. He a milestone birthday two then began working on weeks from Thursday, the farm that had been but it’s unlikely that the originally settled by his rural Worthington resigrandparents. dent will slow down too “In 1893 Grandlong to celebrate. pa came here, and two After all, even though years later they (grandhe’s on the cusp of parents) came here becoming a centenaragain and stayed,” ian, Shore isn’t one to Shore said. sit around and simply Shore would stay, be idle. It has just never too, leading a life that been his way. included farming with Shore was born Feb. his dad, raising a fam25, 1921 on the property where he still lives ily, working additional today, though his first jobs off the farm and home no longer stands. picking up multiple Not long afterward, hobbies. he moved to a nearby In the ’30s, corn, oats house at the intersecand for the horses and tion of Oliver Avenue cattle were the focus of and 280th Street that the Shores’ farm work. They had 300-plus acres back then; another 80 acres were eventually purchased. Shore rents out all of his farmland today. In 1941, Shore married Vivian Luing, and the couple would go on to raise three sons and one daughter. It was around that time that the farm was able to trade its 32-volt wind charger for a rural electric connection, he recalled. Not surprisingly, Shore used an array of farm-related equipment Submitted photos over the years. Though %RE 6KRUH ZKR ZLOO EH LQ WZR ZHHNV JHWV D EDWK he sold some off, he continues to maintain a IURP KLV PRWKHU VRPHWLPH LQ
collection of between 12 and 15 tractors. “As far as grain, I had a one-row picker, and then all the neighbors got together and threshed,” Shore said of his early farming days. “We had a GP (general purpose) John Deere first and had that a few years — not too many, though I remember plowing with it here during the first King Turkey Days (1939). In 1939, my dad bought a brand-new Minneapolis Moline, and we had that to farm with for many years.” Shore’s dad, however, became ill — “he got to be crippled up with the same disease that Mom had” — and died in 1956. Shore eventually farmed his land with Lyn Vanderweff, who lived nearby and was married to Vivan’s sister, Dot. The Shore family, of course, all helped on the farm, Jerry, the oldest son, died in May 2020. Son Jim lives in Sibley, Iowa; son Tom (and his wife, Ruth) live nearby the old farm place; and daughter Alma resides in Omaha, Nebraska. In addition to farming, Shore worked with LB Smith in Bigelow, with whom he did corn shelling and livestock trucking. He was already employed there when
Submitted photos
Bob Shore is shown as a young boy on the rural :RUWKLQJWRQ SURSHUW\ RQ ZKLFK KH VWLOO OLYHV WRGD\ he caught on at Worthington Tractor Salvage (Dyke’s Tractor Supply) and worked there off and on for many years. Shore and his son, Jim, also fabricated tractor cabs for several years while he was still engaged in farming. It was 1972 — shortly after Jim had come from military service — that Shore built the home in which he still lives today. He and Vivian settled there together until her death in 1998, but Shore married Dot, his wife’s widowed sister, soon afterward. By then, Shore had slowed down on farming, though he said he still gets on the back hoe
every once in a while. “I headed out this past summer,” he stated matter-of-factly. “When you got tile lines all over, you’ve got to keep after ’em.” Shore put in a line with son Tom just three years ago, which was about four years after Dot had passed away. He now lives with Etta Schroeder, his so-called “partner in crime” whom he has known since she was 7 years old. It was during Dot’s final days that Shore picked up a new hobby he has continued to enjoy. STILL STRONG: page 2