Seif & Eaton Township Memories

November 13, 1998

The houses I lived in while growing up

Both houses were similar, both had the door to the South and when you entered the house you were in what would today be called a kitchen, although we spent most all of our time here. On the other end was the bedroom. There were only 2 rooms in the very first house, it's size was eight feet by sixteen feet, so each room was 8x8. I slept in a crib and my brother slept with my parents.

In the bedroom there was only a bed, a crib, small chifferobe, and in the winter a potty with a cover. There were nails on the wall for hanging clothes. A chifferobe is a piece of furniture with space to hang clothes on one side and a mirror, with drawers below on the other. This one had about 18 inches of hanging space for clothes and our good clothes hung in there. We each had one good outfit to wear and it was taken off immediately upon arriving home from somewhere, and hung up in this chifferobe.

In the other room there was an old wood cook stove, and there were shelves on the wall, with flour sack curtains, this was the cupboard. The top shelf, which was open, held the lamp during the day, and a few groceries; the middle shelf held the dishes and the lower one held the food. Below the shelves on nails hung two dishpans and in the corner on the far side, was where a large milk can sat that had flour in it. Next to that was another smaller can that held sugar, This was all on the South wall, then there was a window. Between the window and door was a shelf, where a pail of drinking water with a dipper in it sat. Next to it on this shelf, was a wash bowl. Below the shelf sat two pails which we called slop pails. The one was used to empty the washbowl into, and was dumped out side in the garden area. The other one contained discarded potato peelings or anything wasted from our plates, (which wasn't very much) and it was fed to the pig.

In the middle of this room was a table and four chairs. Once in a while my dad's brother would come and stay with us, so a bedspring was tied at the Four Corners to the ceiling with heavy ropes. This was his bed during the night, during the day one side was pushed up against the wall and tied in place so the table could be pulled back to the middle of the floor.

Our floors were rough lumber which had been cut, but never planed. The boards were 12 inches wide and after they were there awhile they warped, and where the edges curled up some; is where the ferns would grow through the floor. My mother was very neat and she would scrub these boards with a scrub brush on her hands and knees. After some time these boards became smooth where we walked the most.

I think we lived in that house about a year and then my father put on an addition on the West Side, making the house 16x16. So then we had a separate kitchen which was just to the left as you entered the house and the other end was made into a bedroom. We then had a dining/living area of 8x16. As you entered the kitchen there was a new shelf where the water pail and wash bowl sat and it had more room now. Slop pails still sat below. On the other side of the door sat the kitchen range it had a warming oven and a reservoir, we filled it with water and the water was kept warm when there was fire in the stove. Sometimes it would still be a little warm after the fire had gone out.

Just beyond the stove was a trap door in the floor where my father had dug out a dirt basement, to keep canned foods, milk and butter cool. Opposite the trap door was a drop leaf table where we would now have our small meals.

In the big room we had another bigger table where the kerosene lamp sat, and the place where my brother and I would do our homework.

When I was 6 years old we had a bad hail storm and the house took a beating and it was at this time that my father decided it was time to build a new house. This house had a cement foundation and was arranged much like the first, except it was two a story. We still had a trap door and a ladder to get to the basement, but we could now set the milk and butter on something a little more solid. He made shelves down there for canned foods, and my mother use to can a lot of foods.

In what was the dining room my dad built an open set of steps so we could get up stairs, which is where my brother and I slept. It too had a trap door, but my dad rigged up a pulley and put a wheel from a cultivator on a rope and it counter balanced the trap door so my brother and I could push it open real easy.

The upstairs was divided in half by a curtain and I had the West half and my brother had the East half and the door came up in his half, so my half was a bit more private that his was.

In this new house, my brother and I slept upstairs and in the night we could tell it was snowing, because we could feel it on our faces as it blew in under the eaves. On real cold nights, the quilts, of which we had many would freeze in an arc around our face, where we breathed on them. We also learned how to roll the covers back so the snow wouldn't fall into bed with us. Then we would run like mad for the heater where we would dress in our long underwear.

My mother made all of our clothes except shoes, socks and long johns. Shoes were generally hand me downs from a neighbor as were socks and underwear at times.

We carried all our water from a spring, which was ½ mile away, with a yoke. I had one too, only mine was smaller than my dads. I carried 2 one-gallon Karo Syrup pails on each side. Now I wonder why my back bothers. We had to carry water for everything for drinking, cooking, baths and clothes washing. My mother would have us fill boilers on the cook stove for wash-day and she boiled all white clothes after they were washed. When she was done she used the water to scrub the floors, then when the water was cool it was used to water our plants.

She washed on a washboard with Fels Naphtha soap, and a scrub brush. Clothes were hung on the line and in the winter when they were frozen stiff they were brought in for ironing. The clothes would actually stand up for a bit after being brought in.

Our irons were called sad irons and they were heated on the stove. We had three irons and one exchangeable handle. So you started ironing the things that needed a hot iron and then did things like silk and hankies with the cooler iron then you would go to the stove and switch irons and do the same thing again. Clothes were sorted into piles of things that took hot, medium and cool iron, for ironing.

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It was started about the time school started which was usually in mid August and when it started to freeze we were trying to move into it and he was putting the tar paper on the outside at the time. As for the materials he cut down trees to clear the land for farming and then he had a fellow, with a saw mill, cut it into boards. Most of the boards were very rough and so the inside was just rough 2x4's. The lumber for the porch step was given to him from a fellow that he built a barn for and it was smooth lumber.

"I don't remember all those hardships back then although my father did work for theWPA back then".

That brought back still more memories of our building the house. We had a CCC camp near where the house was built and they were hiring WPA workers to tear down the old buildings. So my dad, mother, brother and myself went to the site and picked up nails so we could finish building the house. I remember it was November and very cold, I about froze my fingers off. My mother had gone into the one building that was left at this site, to warm her hands and my dad made the remark, there must be a man in there, as long as it is taking her to warm up. I had to go in and get warm too and my mother was talking to the fellow that was keeping the stove going and I told her what dad had said. I guess from what she said later she could have killed me for that remark that I made in front of the fellow. She didn't go back to warm her hands again the rest of the day. My dad thought it was funny but she didn't. It was the fall before we built the house and so I would have been about 6 when I said that. Of course I didn't get the drift of the joke at the time, but I certainly embarrassed my mother.

Tornados

In 1934 or 35 a tornado went through our farm.  The cow was in the barn to be milked and we had a police dog that was kept for protection (he would bite strangers); that was tied up out side.  The cow started to "beller" so mom decided to check the cow and also to bring in some clothes from the clothes line.  When she got out side she spotted the funnel heading right toward the house.  She let the dog loose but didn't have time to let the cow go.

This was in the house that was very small which is described on the link below.  Dad had dug a hole under part of the house for mom to lay her canned stuff.   Mom threw all the bedding and coats on those fruit jars and then she put my brother and I in that hole.  She stayed up in the doorway until the funnel got too close and then she dropped into this hole with us.  She had us say our prayer and I remember she tried to stay calm,  I'm sure it was for our sake, but I could feel her shaking like a leaf.  She put both of our heads in her lap and then she bent over us.  I can still remember how uncomfortable it was sitting on those fruit jars while we waited for the cyclone to pass.

There was a horrible loud noise like a freight train going through and we could hear pails and tubs blowing around out side.  When it had quieted down mom climbed out and looked and the tornado had lifted just before it got to the house.  She said she thought is was because of the hill just west of us.
For many years I had nightmares about tornados, and I think the only lie my mother ever told me was, 'Tornado's don't come in the night.'  I'm sure she told me that to get me to go to sleep.
 
There was another incident when Kenneth Klaur from Globe came over and mentioned a piece of wallboard landing in his yard and at that time Black River Falls had been hit by a bad one.

Before Washing Machines

I guess I can relate to the scrub board and scrub brush.  I learned to do laundry as a child on one.  You put the board in the tub, it leaned on the side and the clothes were also in there soaking. 
You would pull up a piece of clothing and lay it on the ridges of the board and then rub Fels Naptha or home made soap on the dirtiest spots.  Then you would rub the garment up and down on the board and also use the scrub brush intermittently until the spot was gone; dipping it in the water as you went. 

The soap was kept at the top of the board (wooden part) as you worked with the clothes.  As soon as you had the satisfied results you would dip the garment up and down a few times to rinse off the soap and remaining dirt and then wring it out and put it in the rinse tub.  Later we too, had a hand cranked wringer.   We had two rinse tubs to get the soap out.

Our neighbors got a gas powered washer and I remember my mother asking how she liked it.  Her reply was that the clothes didn't wear out in spots like before, they just fell apart all over.  I often wonder if she used something that caused them to fall apart.

I sure could see how they would wear out in spots faster the way we scrubbed them, especially the knees and seat also the socks.
We always washed the white first then the lighter and last the overalls.

We had a boiler on the stove that the whites and some of the colored were put in and boiled.  Then we used a wooden stick to fish them out and put them into the rinse water.

My mother used to store the scrub board out by the outside toilet and the porcupines would chew it up, we always thought they may have been after the residue of salt from the clothes.

I hope this didn't get too long, but it is difficult to describe unless you were there.