History
Everyone has done it…stopped, or at least slowed way down to they can look at the roadside wreck they have just come up on. Of course, we all hope and pray that the people who were involved are ok, and we feel really bad for them that their vehicle is a big mess, if not a complete total. Still, we can’t help but look at the scene with curiosity. We wonder how the accident happened, and who was at fault. And while it may seem strange, we find ourselves in awe at the way metal can twist and go from being a car to something that doesn’t even resemble a car. My dad and his brother, my Uncle Bill came up on this truck at the side of the road. It had rolled, and I guess there wasn’t a tow truck readily available, so it was left on the side of the road for a time. Well, their curiosity got the better of them, and they stopped to have their picture taken by the wreck. Maybe it was the first one they had ever seen…who knows.
I suppose that since cars were a little bit less common back then, wrecks were too. So, maybe that was a big part of the draw to look over the wreck…but that doesn’t explain the fascination we still seem to have. People take pictures of the wreck and post it to Facebook, the newspaper sends a reporter out there to get the shots that will go into the paper, and the television station sends reporters out to get shots for the news. Odd as it is, we still seem to want to see these wrecks. I suppose it is an appetite for the sensational. We watch monster truck wrecks, and love to see the rollovers. I suppose we have become somewhat immune to the reality of what these accidents can bring to pass in peoples’ lives.
As an insurance agent, I see the other side of many of these accidents. I am thankful that I very seldom see accidents with fatalities. Maybe that is just that I live in Wyoming, and with less people in our state, there is less likelihood that there will be a fatality in any given 
accident. Whatever the case may be, I have been fortunate enough to only have to deal with a small amount of fatalities in the 25 years I have been an agent. Nevertheless, the accidents with injuries, especially when it is a family member, even if the injuries are very minor, can be very traumatic. Probably the worst one for me, was the accident involving my niece, Lacey when a semi-truck ran a red light, and hit her car. Thankfully, she and her cousin had only minor injuries. The truck driver felt so horrible about the accident, that he sold his truck, and quit driving trucks completely. While not all roadside wrecks are this bad looking, sometimes they don’t have to be in order to be really bad.
These days there are machines that can cut, bail, and stack hay with ease, but in times past, it was not so easy. There were machines that cut the hay, but then it had to be thrown up on a wagon with a pitchfork and hauled to where the haystack was going to be placed, unloaded and thrown up onto the haystack by hand using the pitchfork again. Then someone had to be up on the top leveling it out so that the ha could be stacked higher. It was no easy job, and the more people you had helping the better off you were. It was definitely not a job for one person, and definitely not for wimps. The farmer and his crew had arms of steel, because hay is not light, no matter how it looks. I have helped move hay bails, and found out for myself that it is not a job for lightweights.
My dad’s family spent a lot of time making hay when they owned the farm in Minnesota, and 
my Uncle Bill helped his wife’s family too over the years that they owned a farm. Load after load, they worked the weekend away. Moving the hay from the hayfield to the stack behind the old barn, where it would stay stacked until it was needed. It was hard work, but Uncle Bill was on his days off, and so they wanted to get as much done in the time they had before he had to go back to work in the shipyards. I haven’t had the impression that it was a job that any of them enjoyed very much, but rather it was a job that had to be done, so they did it. I think I can agree with Uncle Bill when he said that he was glad when hay making time was finally over. Now that we don’t raise cows, I can honestly say that moving hay around in any form, is something I don’t miss. I think it must have taken a very determined person to work a farm the way it had to be done back in the days when there weren’t all the machines there are these days. The work is hard enough these days, even with all the machines, so 
imagine what it would be like without them. No wonder those people were so strong.
And after the hay was stacked, you had to use a pitch fork again to move it to where you needed it for the animals. So, now the whole process is reversed, as they haul the hay off of the stack, thereby bringing about the need to make more hay the next summer. Of course it is all necessary, and that is why farmers and ranchers do it. The hay is needed for the animals. This whole process causes me to really respect the farmer and rancher…especially the ones from days gone by because theirs was one really hard job.
I have been reading my Great Aunt Bertie Schumacher’s journal for a while now, and every time I pick it up I find something new. She started her journal by talking about how any writer can become famous in time, simply by observing the events around them and writing about those events, how they made people feel, and what happened because of those events. As a writer myself, I began to think about what she said, because there really is a vast difference, I think, between a writer and a reporter. A reporter simply tells the events as they happened, but a writer elaborates on the events, the people involved, and their feelings. There are reporters who are writers, obviously, but I think it would be very hard for a writer not to interject their thoughts and feelings into a report.
Aunt Bertie wanted to tell a little bit about the things that were going on in their time. Still, she could not help but put into words how she felt about the events of the day. She mentioned that the first Kindergarten was formed in 1873. At that time there were only about 200 high schools in the entire country, but by 1900 there were 6000, along with colleges that were heavily endowed by the Rockefeller, Stanford, and Vanderbilt families. Fisk College for “blacks” came into being. Women were coming to the foreground. Football became a part of college life. You could become a doctor in four months…later it took three years, and we all know it takes much longer now. At that time, 98% of children were in the grades. Aunt Bertie mentions that it was thought that education was a cure all. Authors like Emily Dickinson, Bret Hart, and Mark Twain tried to enrich the world. There were streetcar and yacht races, P.T Barnum Circus, Dwight Moody held mass revivals, and McGuffy’s Reader taught moral lessons. And then she tells about the thing that bothers her the most, when she said, “But all this did not abolish CHILD LABOR!” 
It seemed to Aunt Bertie that there were so many changes that the nation was seeing, but the one thing that appalled her the most at the time, was still there, and still endangering the lives of children. It was so hard for her to imagine that with everything else moving with such monumental steps toward a more modern civilization, that was so much more educated, that no one could stop child labor. In fact it seemed to her that no one noticed it, or even cared at all.
Her writings picture disasters, such as the panic in 1873, at the height of the reconstruction of the 1870’s…widespread unemployment, bankruptcy of many people, and failure of businesses, the Great Chicago fire and fires in Wisconsin, Boston, and other places that caused the failure of Insurance Companies who did not have enough Reserves to cover all of these disasters, railroad strikes and violence. Then she mentions what she terms “the sins of society”, one million people living in New York slums…ten to fifteen people in three rooms. The thought of so many people being forced to live in such appalling conditions tore at Aunt Bertie’s heart. Somehow, these things just should not be, and yet this was the world we were living in at that time.
Aunt Bertie wanted to tell about the things that were changing in our world, and how many improvements those changes were making to the world, but her tender heart just couldn’t get past the horrible injustices she could still see. There are lessons to be learned from her writings. Lessons of compassion, kindness, charity, and love for our fellow man. All too often we are so busy working on the improvements we want to make in our lives, society, and our 
world in general, that we forget about how those things could affect the lives of others. The greed of the factory owners could not see past the profit to what their child laborers were suffering. Many changes have come from the horrors of the past. Child labor laws now protect our children, and as an insurance agent, I know that companies must hold enough in reserve to cover disastrous losses, and that while no insurance company is completely safe from failure, there is far less chance of it these days because of those reserves. While those days and events tore at Aunt Bertie’s tender heart, maybe society wasn’t totally deaf to the plight of the people after all.
My sister, Allyn and I were texting the other day. She used the slang comment…for real. I understood exactly what she was talking about, thereby aging both of us as children of the 70’s. It’s something that happens to everyone no matter how young or how old. Each generation has it’s own slang, and the other generations might, or more like probably, will not understand it. And even if they do, they would probably laugh at you for using such old fashioned slang!!
There is also, another type of slang that can place you in a certain group, and I suppose it can be just as funny. Again, in the 70’s and early 80’s, a lot of people had CB radios. I suppose it was the cell phone of that era, since no one had even heard of cell phones back then. Most CBers had a base unit at home, and smaller units in the cars. It was a great way for family members to keep in touch, let parents know they were running late for curfew, had car trouble, or were on their way home for supper. It left little excuses for kids to say, “I had no way of letting you know!” The kids might not have liked it, but it worked.
Not everyone had a CB radio, of course, but my husband, Bob’s family had several truckers or ex-truckers in it, so it was considered the normal for us. If you have ever had a CB radio, you would know that everyone had a handle…the name they used so people knew who they were talking to. My father-in-law was the Wrenchbender, my mother-in-law was the Lady Wrenchbender. My brother-in-law, Lynn was the Sparrow, my sister-in-law, Debbie was Lady Bird. Bob was the Slingshot, I was the Lady Slingshot. My sister-in-law, Jennifer was the Patchwork Girl, my sister-in-law Brenda was Slipstitch, and my brother-in-law, Ron was Grape Ape, and my sister-in-law, Marlyce was…well, her handle has escaped all of us, and is now driving us crazy, trying to think of it, but she did have one. Even our girls had a handle…although they never used the CB…Corrie was Little Slingshot and Amy was Tiny Slingshot. It was a lot to remember, but just like your friends’ names, you did it.
And then there was the CB jargon. Things like Smokey, Hammer Down, Bubblegum Machine, Go Juice, Choke and Puke, Negatory…Cop, go really fast, patrol car, drink, roadside diner, and no, respectively, and all of which you may have heard, if you have ever watched “Smokey and the Bandit” before. These were common terms…but, only if you used a CB radio…or saw the 
movie. Of course, there were many others too, and I could go on and on, but you would undoubtedly get bored with that.
These are all terms that I haven’t used for a very, very long time. Nevertheless, the other morning when I was on my way to pick up my daughter, Amy for work, since her son, Caalab has her car while his is being repaired. I called her to let her know I was on my way. As I was ending the call, I found myself saying…out of the blue and for no reason I could think of…”I’ll see you in a short“, which is CB slang for a minute or so. I haven’t said that in so long, and Amy obviously missed the comment, because she didn’t say a word, but it sure brought back memories for me.
My Great Uncle John Clark Spare, who was my Great Aunt Mina Schumacher’s husband, had a lengthy career in the Army, that began when he enlisted in the North Dakota National Guard on June 30, 1916 at the tender young age of 17 years. At that time he was assigned to the Rio Grande River Border Patrol along the United States-Mexican Border, at Mercedes, Texas. In all, he served off and on from 1916 to 1943. When he wasn’t off fighting in wars, he was able to receive training in the Highway Engineering branch of Civil Engineering at Iowa State College. Following his education, he was assigned to field work, which is where I believe he began his initial association with the Indian tribes in the area, and would eventually change his life forever.
However that may have happened, John did end up being considered a person the tribes would listen to, and because of that, he was invited on November 11, 1936 to the Standing Rock Indian Reservation near Cannonball to give a speech at the American Legion Post Rally. Later that day, an Indian named White Eagle told him that an old Indian named Walking Cloud liked his speech very much and wanted to meet him. As it turned out, Walking Cloud had recently lost his son. He wanted to adopt John in his place…quite an honor. Over the remainder of that year and into the next, Walking Cloud and his wife, Mary visited the Spare home frequently. I would guess that they were getting to know each other better.
The ceremony was set for July 4, 1937 at Cannonball, during the first celebration of the Sundance since it was abolished in 1892 because the government felt the ritual was too torturous. For those who don’t know, the ritual entailed raising a huge pole with leather thongs tied to the top…two for each dancer. Incisions were made in two places on the braves chests and the ends of the thongs knotted into them. The dancers then danced around the pole until the thongs ripped from their chest, as a way of displaying their bravery. The Sundance was able to be revived in 1937, because most of the older Indians had died, and the younger ones weren’t very interested in having the torturous dance kept as part of the ceremony after all 
that time.
John Clark Spare was made Walking Cloud’s son during that ceremony, and given a Chief’s headdress made with genuine eagle feathers, which would be impossible now. Attached to the headdress was a long trailer of brilliant feathers running from the base of the neck to the ground. Trailers were worn by chiefs only on special occasions, Mina had fashioned breeches and a coat of pure white leather for him. Her work was exquisite, especially the bead work that covered most of the garment. After his adoption, John studied Indian lore more than before, and the collecting of Indian artifacts became his beloved hobby.
Every time I look at this picture of Bob’s great grandfather, Orin Eugene Noyes, who went by Eugene, I can’t help but notice that he looks like the fictional character Geppetto from the book, Pinocchio, or at least the picture I have in my head of what he would have looked like. I never met Bob’s great grandfather, nor did Bob, because Eugene passed away in 1928, but when you look at him, you can see that he was a nice and very kind man. I wanted to know a little bit more about him, so I began to look for any stories there might be out there. I wasn’t very successful in finding any stories about him, so I decided to see what he did for a living. I don’t know, maybe I had a feeling.
As you all know, Geppetto was a wood carver, more specifically, he made wood furniture. That was how he came up with the idea of making Pinocchio. So, I started looking for any other information on Eugene Noyes. In my search, I found out that his dad was a farmer. That isn’t really anything that would tie in to my idea of who Eugene reminded me of. I kept looking and came across a census in 1910. I was quite surprised to find that Eugene Noyes was the owner of a furniture store. How funny is that? No, he didn’t build the furniture…at least not that I know of, but he sold furniture, and that was what Geppetto did too. I know it is a little odd, but Geppetto is who Bob’s great grandfather reminded me of, and as it turns out, he was a similar type of person.
As I look at this man, who had a big part in giving me my husband, I can see what a gentle soul he was. His face showed such gentleness…such kindness. I think he was a man who very much loved being a father and 
grandfather, and loved his family with all his heart. No, his life was not childless as that of Geppetto, but I believe that they shared a love of children, and that desire to be parents. Eugene wasn’t always a furniture store owner, but rather a farmer like his father before him. He started out farming, and then owner the furniture store, which makes me wonder if there was a drought, or the crops were lost for some other reason, and he decided to try something different. After about ten years in the furniture business, he decided to retire back to farming, and would do that for the rest of his life. Nevertheless, for those ten years, he was very close to the Geppetto that I have imagined him to be.
These days, with most towns having multiple schools, our school days are often taken for granted, and even viewed…by many students and boring, grueling, and basically something to get through and over with, so they can move on to real life. But, schooling in the old west, and even into the mid 1900’s wasn’t always such an easy thing to accomplish. As our nation grew, and people spread out across its vastness, schools were one thing in short supply. Many parents had to home school their children, which is becoming more of a luxury item these days, because with home schooling, comes the loss of one income, and many people can’t or don’t want to make it on one income.
When my great grandparents, Carl and Henriette Schumacher moved their family from Minnesota to North Dakota, they were quite a way from the school, but they saw the importance of educating their children. The family spoke German at home, and when the older children started school, the teachers made fun of their lack of the knowledge of the English language. Henriette immediately set out to change that. German would no longer be spoken in the home. The whole family would make the switch to English. The distance to school was a big problem, but Carl made sure that his children were there…no matter what.
That worked well for the older children, but at that time in history, many children didn’t go to school after the 6th grade, and some quit sooner. So, when Bertha and Elsa, the youngest children were in school, a new problem presented itself. The school was nearer to them now, but often there were not enough students to warrant keeping it open, thus their education became hap-hazard. That is not to say that they did not get their education, because they did, and even went on to college. Theirs was just a little bit different than their older siblings.
Bertha tells of going to school in the small school, with very few students, but she also talks of the year they were home schooled but their oldest sister, my future grandmother, Anna. She talks of the time that they spent in a small house in Lisbon, with Mina staying with them so they could go to school. And of course, there were the times they went by horse and buggy into school. Those were hard times, and I have to wonder how the girls kept up with the other students, and were able to continue on to the high school in Lisbon. It’s not that I wondered about my grandmother’s ability to teach, but with little or no regulation, how did the school in Lisbon know anything about their prior education.
I suppose they had to take some kind of test or visit with the teacher for a time so they could determine where they were in their education, and therefore could be placed in one grade or another. I know that often in homeschooling situations today, the students are ahead of their age group, but I still wonder if that was the case then, because their materials were few and there was really no clear way to know if the teacher was keeping up with other classes for their pupils’ age groups. Those must have been hard and confusing times for Bertha and Elsa. Nevertheless, they both finished school, like their older siblings, and went on to college, but their education was definitely at The School of Hap-Hazard.
Farm work in years gone by, was a much harder job than it is these days, but with the invention of machinery, things got easier. Still, most people couldn’t afford to own those machines in the early years, so they either did the work by hand, or hired the threshers to come and do it. Soon, most farmers were hiring the threshers to come. It was a lucrative business for someone who had enough money to buy a machine…or better yet, several. I know that those members of my family, who were farmers, did hire the threshers, or else, they had enough money to buy their own machines, but I have to think that most people in those early years did not think the machine was a good value, if a man was going to just use it on their own farm, so the work was mostly hired out.
When the threshers were scheduled to come to your farm, it was a big day. The women would get up early and start cooking for the men, who would be very hungry by lunch time. 
This was heavy work, even with the help of the machinery. Nevertheless, everyone was excited when the threshers came…from the adults to the little kids. I’m sure that being able to watch the big machines working was a novel thing in those early years, and nobody wanted to miss out. Not only that, but everyone wanted to get their picture taken with the workers too, so that they could say they had been there when they were working. It was almost like having a celebrity visit your house, I suppose. It is a day like no other in the year. Everyone wants to be in on all the excitement, and it’s hard to keep the little kids out of the way. Nevertheless, they had to stay out of the way, because the huge machines were also dangerous and could easily kill a small child.
With the excitement, however, comes hard work. When the threshers are done. The grain had to be bagged for storage or sale, and the straw stacked for use in the barns. Nevertheless, it took a lot less workers to harvest the crops, and many farm laborers were not happy about that, because they faced the loss of their jobs. I suppose that with every bit of progress 
designed to make our lives easier, comes the possibility of job loss. Every time a machine takes over the hard labor, a worker becomes unnecessary. People have to adapt and change, educating themselves to run the equipment so they can move into a job that takes more skill, and thus creates job security. I know that for the farmer, the machines were the best thing to come along. The wages they didn’t have to pay out to the laborers added up to pure profit for them, even with the cost of the threshers. It was a new era, and things would never be the same again.
I have noticed in the family history books that my Uncle Bill Spencer put together over the years, that people in the family, or maybe that era, would sometimes just pick up and go visit a different branch of the family…often without much or any advance notice of their impending arrival. I suppose that sometimes they just got excited about finding out about a different branch of the family, and decided to go check it out for themselves. Being a bit shy around strangers, family or otherwise, I find this type of visit to be very strange indeed. What do you say to those people after the initial, “Hello, You don’t know me, but I am your relative from Wyoming.” I would simply have no idea. That is probably why most people who do go to visit relatives they don’t know or don’t know well, take someone else with them…to help carry the conversation. I can’t imagine going alone, and yet that seems to be the norm for some people.
My grandfather did just that when he went out to visit his Aunt Tessie, as did his brother, my Great Uncle Clifford. Oddly, both of them just dropped in on Aunt Tessie!! I don’t know if Uncle Clifford just liked what he heard about Aunt Tessie from his brother, my Grandpa Allen Luther Spencer, or if he was curious about her and her family too, or if he even knew of the prior visit by a member of his family, but he went, and he went alone. I also have to wonder what Aunt Tessie thought of the whole thing…like, “What is it about me that makes these people keep just showing up here?” It appears to me, as it did to my Uncle Bill, that my cousin Cornelius Davis, who was Aunt Tessie’s son, found his cousin a little strange, or maybe the entire visit was just strange to him. It’s possible that he was wondering why these relatives just popped in like they did too, without any advance notice…or maybe he was wondering just how long this guy planned to stay.
Bob and I have gone many times to visit his family in Forsyth, Montana, but we always told them that we were coming, and our stay was just a week. I guess, in days gone by, when it takes a long time to get somewhere, it didn’t make sense just to stay a week, because it probably took several days driving out, so if all you had was a week, you would have to turn around and leave again. Still, I can’t imagine going for a visit without letting anyone know. Of course, the phone was not widely used in those days, so it would mean a telegraph, but it seems that many people just went and didn’t worry about it. Whatever the case may be, my cousin Cornealius seemed to think it was rather a strange visit indeed.
It’s strange that our minds, even as small children can remember the things that most impressed us. Even as young as 3, or maybe even younger, those memories so clearly imprint themselves on our mind that we can see the event as if we were experiencing it still. Sometimes that memory is scary and we wish we could forget, such as the time I was tripped by a woman trying to get off of the escalator that we were on. I clearly remember falling, my dress being torn, and my chin and elbow being cut. Escalators bother me to this day. Other memories, like the first time we got to stay in a motel bring a smile to my face.
I’m sure that is exactly how my Great Aunt Bertie Schumacher felt when she remembered the fall days on the farm, after the wheat had been harvested, and the flocks of ducks and geese would begin their migration south. She remembers that the wheat fields seemed to be covered 
with a thick cloud, that was in fact the flocks of ducks and geese. Then the fields seemed to be alive as they went about looking for food as the evening neared. She recalls how her older brother, Albert would go out to the wheat fields and return with twenty birds in an hour. While Fred, Bertie, and Elsa watched with their mouths watering, Anna and Mina had to clean the birds, and even though they liked the end result, the cleaning was a lot of work, and they grumbled through every second of it.
Years later the family had a smoke house, and the meat that came from there was heavenly. Great Aunt Bertie said she could still taste that meat, while feeling quite sad that she had gone years without it by then. One of her fondest memories of her mother was one of sneaking out to the smoke house with a sharp knife and cutting off a bit of the meat whenever they needed a snack in the middle of the day. And the best thing is that it was allowed in their home, and not considered an offence in need of punishment.
So much of life is commonplace, and would maybe even be considered boring, but in every life there are moments that stand out…that, are labeled in our memory files as special and very important, even if, to other people, they would not seem so. It is the privilege of each person’s mind to pick the memories that it finds the most special and the most important…the sweetest memories. Then they are locked away, so they can be opened up another day, when something we see, hear, taste, smell, or touch triggers that particular file to reopen and pour out that sweet memory that has been tucked away there, so that we can experience it once again in our mind.
