Surnames: PENGELLY

----Source: Loyal, Wisconsin Library Scrapbook Collection

Pengelly, Grace

I am another member of the Loyal, Clark County Women’s Study Club, an older one. I used to teach in the Loyal Public High School. The subjects I taught were English Literature and grammar, German literature and grammar, Music (girls and boys singing groups also). Also I coached some plays and other dramatics, public speaking, etc.

Since our marriage, we have lived on a big dairy farm, where of course we have lots of cows, about 40. But we also have sheep. It is fun to work around them when they have their little new lambs. Sheep are so friendly, and so helpless! They are dependent upon their shepherd, and look to him eagerly for everything. They cannot defend themselves against unfriendly dogs or any other marauders. Our mother sheep have many, many pairs of twins and occasionally some triplets, and then we have to hunt up a bottle, or else a sympathetic mother sheep with only one lamb and plenty of milk; except that they usually won’t nurse any lamb except their own. Our farm lies along a concrete or cement highway. In the spring, when we have all the little lambs out and they go running and jumping, they are so cute and dear. When parents are out driving in the car with their children, they tell us often, the children say, "Now go slow daddy, when you come to the sheep place!" They live to watch our lambs play.

Around here, I think every farmer has a car. Some have two cars, and the second one is a truck. Besides that, they have a tractor, a big one for the farm field work and sometimes a second smaller tractor to use around the barn. We have only one tractor and two teams of draft horses. My husband thinks he can still do lots more things with a team of horses. This winter the snow had been deep, and he has been glad to have the faithful horses to do his chores with. It has been very cold this winter too, a record cold at times, but we have been warm and cozy. We burn wood for fuel and we have plenty of it growing on the farm. That’s one place horse come in handy, is for going with the sleigh down through the tree stumps to get wood.

The farm provides so many things for our daily living in this country, that I don’t know if I would care for a city life. We have everything, electric, radios, refrigerator, washing machines, irons, vacuum cleaners, electric range for cooking, telephone, besides just lots of room. We keep our meat supply in a big frozen food locker. I used to can it and then always had between 800 and 1000 quarts, but now the locker saves me all that work. We freeze all of our food except the soup from the beef bones, which I can. Usually we have in the locker, a steer, for lovely tender beef, a good tender young pig, with lard and sausage, and a couple of lambs whose meat is all cut up and wrapped in meal-size packages. It is a big hurry up job when we are doing it, but it’s nice to have it ready when hot weather comes.

Another thing that seems to be a tradition in this area, is our Christmas tree. It grows outside, in front of our home, and since it was a little thing, just showing above the snow, I have put out bright Christmas lights on at holiday time. Of course it has grown and grown and takes about 150 electric bulbs to light it up. People around Christmas wonder, "why don’t we light it and when are we going to?", and they drive from long distances to look for it. They really seem to be disappointed, too, if it is not lit. It is so tall now that I have to have a sixteen foot ladder to reach the top branches, but it can be seen for miles as anyone approaches our farm, since we are on a gentle hilltop. I hope I have told you something about our life that interests you. If you’d like to know more, or have something to ask or tell me, please write to Mrs. Roy (Grace) L. Pengelly.