Chapter 2 Page 1

When I was four years old we moved to Tennessee. Dad had gone there to look at some land and bought a farm.  We could hardly wait for his return, as we were full of questions. Finally, we received a letter in the mail saying he was coming home on the Greyhound Bus, and he would arrive in Apple Creek, Ohio the next day. My oldest brother, Pete, hitched the horse to the buggy so mom could go to Apple Creek and pick him up.  Dad brought back some candy for us as a present. Then he told us a story about our new farm.  We had to have a sale in order to move. We were to sell our cows, farm machinery, and such. We had raised a big garden that summer, and canned all our fruit and vegetables in quart jars. So dad had to make special wooden boxes to put these jars in for travel. We filled the boxes with oats to keep the jars from breaking. 

In October we had our sale.  We sold most of our farm machinery, our cows, calves, heifers and pigs.  We sold all the livestock except the horses. In November 1960, we loaded a boxcar in Apple Creek. Friends and neighbors helped us with horses and wagons. We put all the wagons on one end of the boxcar, and put the rest of the farm machinery, which we did not sell, on the other end. The horses were in the middle. We took three, fifty-gallon, barrels of water with us for the horses, about four-hundred-pounds of oats, and twenty bales of hay. Once the boxcar left Ohio we figured it would take about three and a half days to get to Tennessee. We had to finish loading that day, because the boxcar was leaving that evening. Dad and Uncle Menno got on the boxcar that evening and left for Tennessee. 

Two days later the rest of us left by bus.  We reached Tennessee the next evening. Boy, I was glad to get off that bus! Aunt Mary met us, with her buggy, at the bus stop in Tennessee.  We were to stay with her overnight.  

The farm that Dad bought was on the way to Aunt Mary's house, so we stopped for a quick look at it. We could not believe our eyes when we saw that farm The barn was about ready to fall down, some of the roof was off, the doors were sagging on the barn, and there was an old hand dug water well in front of the house. The house was really small with only two bedrooms. Some of the windows were knocked out and it was badly overgrown. Mom and us children didn't like what we were seeing. We were all depressed and wishing we were back in Ohio, where we had a nice big house and barn. However, there was no turning back everything had been sold. Aunt Mary said "It wasn't that bad. They would help us fix it up." She had a really nice place and supper was ready on our arrival. 

The next day the boxcar arrived in Ethridge. As soon as it arrived, someone brought the message to our Aunt's place. They hitched up a horse to the buggy, then let everyone know that the boxcar had arrived and needed to be unload tonight. Dad did not take time to eat that evening. It was about eight o'clock that evening when we finished unloading. We stayed with our Aunt Mary again that night. 

The next morning we went over to our new farm. The women all started cleaning the house and unpacking.  The men worked on the barn and on the well. They hooked a pulley about two feet above the well, put a rope through the pulley, tied it to a bucket and let it down the well, until it hit the water, then pulled it back up. This is the way we got our drinking water. 

The house was basically, a shack. My two older brothers, Pete, ten years old, and Joe, eight years old logged timber with a crosscut saw that winter. The next summer we were ready to build a new house and barn. We had to dig our basement by hand for the house. We built the house on the far end of the farm.  We plowed a little spot with a team of horses, then we unhooked the horses from the plow and hooked them up to a slip pan.  We scraped that fresh dirt out and then plowed some more. We got down about five or six feet, then had to dig most of the rest of it by hand and wheel it out with a wheelbarrow. We laid the basement that fall, and planed all the rough-cut lumber, which we used for finish work. The rest of the lumber was all installed rough. It was a big house with four bedrooms. 

In 1962 the house was finally finished. We moved in our new house and also built a barn and tool shed that year. At six years old, I was old enough to help working by then. I had to carry drinking water for the carpenters and keep them in nails. I ran a lot of small errands for them. It was so nice to live in a nice home again, like the rest of the Amish children.  The following year we tore down the set of buildings. We had to borrow money from the church to do all this, for which my Dad paid one percent interest on the borrowed five thousand dollars. Dad purchased five milk cows. The cows weren't making enough money to pay back what we owed. Therefore, the next spring we started looking for work. A lot of local farmers were doing a lot of cash cropping. They would raise a little bit of tobacco, peppers, cotton and sorghum cane. Dad was strictly a farmer, but he saw that he wasn't making any money. He decided to put out about eight acres of cotton ourselves that year. We planted the cotton with a one-row cotton planter. I led the horse all day long. In the Amish culture, by the time you were seven years old, you were old enough to have some responsibilities. One of our neighbors wanted to plant five acres of peppers that year. So, we planted the five acres of peppers for our neighbor. 

In order to do all the farming and cash cropping we wanted to, we had to get up every morning at four thirty. We milked the cows in the morning, by kerosene lanterns for light. By the time we finished the milking, and the other chores, Mom and the girls had breakfast ready. Breakfast usually consisted of fried eggs and grape nuts. After we ate breakfast, we left for the fields. By then it would be daylight. We would hoe five or ten acres of cotton by hand a day. We usually were paid a daily or hourly rate for our labor. 

I was glad when fall arrived because that was when school started. We walked about a mile to a one-room schoolhouse, where we had only one teacher. At least when I was in school, I didn't have to work. In the fall of the year, school was dismissed for a couple weeks so the children could help their parents pick corn and cotton. However, we picked and hoed cotton, planted peppers by hand, and raised tobacco. We had one of our neighbors take the tobacco to Nashville, Tennessee, because he had a truck. 

By 1965, Dad had saved up enough money by cash cropping and dairy farming, to pay back the money we owed, plus about four-thousand-dollars. Now, with some money in his pocket, Dad was looking to buy another farm. By the fall of 1965, dad found his dream farm. It was about ten miles east of us, and was very hilly country. It was a nice big white house with a green roof and red shutters. There were three bedrooms downstairs, two bedrooms upstairs, a big living room and kitchen. The rest of the buildings were really no account. No matter how bad of shape they were in, Dad said, it had to do. The buildings were all setting in a valley, and there was a good-sized creek that ran between the house and a hill behind it. There were a lot of big fish in that creek. This was a nice, peaceful home for Mom, Dad and all of the family but me. 

I guess I was at that awkward age. It seemed that no matter what I did, before the sun went down I'd be bent over my Dad's knee and he'd warm up my backside. At first it confused me, but later I thought maybe this was what life was all about when you started growing up. This was also the farm where I got to experience the ultimate wild cotton stalk. I didn't work fast enough, and my sister picked more cotton than I did. Dad thought I had to be taught a lesson, this is why I received the ultimate beating, the beating of the cotton stalk. This sure taught me how to move, and move fast. I remember bending over and watching my Dad strip the leaves off the many branches of a cotton stalk. I can still see my Dad as he reared back to take that first strike. The sound of that stalk seconds before it connected with my little body, it still makes me shiver. Feeling the sharp pain from all these little branches, which felt like wire, I found it impossible to stand still. Dad commanded me to "stand still and take it like a man", but there was just too much force behind that stalk, and the pain was too sharp. I don't remember how long this went on, but it seemed like forever. I'd never seen my Dad like this before, but it taught me to move like a cat if I felt threatened.  The beatings sometimes slacked off, but it seemed every time the church was seriously feuding, I had to walk on tiptoe around Dad. Sometimes that wasn't good enough. I guess he had to take his frustrations out on someone.