When he married my grandmother, they moved into the house at the farm and they lived the independent rural lifestyle of that time. They kept sun time. Every morning my grandfather would set the time based on the sunrise so that the sun's zenith occurred exactly at 12 noon. Typically some chores were done before breakfast. Breakfast was very substantial, consisting of eggs, breakfast meats, toast and fried potatoes or mush. The ham, bacon and sausage were made and cured on the farm. This would provide the fuel for a long morning of hard physical labor. At noon, everyone on the farm would stop working and eat a large dinner. In my family dinner was eaten at noon and was the largest meal of the day. It was so substantial that the men would sleep afterwards until 2 in the afternoon when work would resume. The evening meal was a light supper that was served on is own plate that was smaller than a dinner plate. The evening would be spent relaxing and visiting with neighbors. Then it was early to bed to be up the next morning to reset the time at sunrise.
Because the farm operated on sun time, there was a half hour difference between the time at the farm and the standard time kept in town. This did not present any real difficulties as the pace of life was much slower then. And even today the sense of time in the country is much more relaxed than it is in the large urban environments. When I moved beck to Madison County after nearly 30 years living on the East Coast working for IBM and other similar companies, I worked for my cousin on the farm for fall harvest. My cousin tried to warn me that he didn't keep to a strict time schedule. He still doesn't. His arrival at the farm can easily vary half an hour, depending on the circumstances of the day.
When my Aunt Jane was old enough to attend school in 1919, my grandfather and his family moved to town. Maggie and Jim Roscoe moved into the house then and lunch was carried to the farm as it was too far to go to town for that. Dinner was moved to the evening meal. My father was not quite 3 when they moved to town and he was not happy with the move. He would stand at the dining room door to the side porch all day and tell anyone who asked what he was doing, "Pretty soon Daddy come and take Matt-Matt home". Grandpa did return every night, but not to take my father back "home". 25 years later we moved into that house at the farm and my father was finally home again.
After the move to town, Earl took over the book work for the farm. Every Saturday night the men working on the farm would come to 25 W. 4th St to settle up for the week and discuss money matters. They each had a book with hours they had worked. If their car was ready for the dump, Earl would help them find another. He would pay for it and they would pay him over a period of time. Many things operated this way. Earl was always getting Jackson Wilson out of jail. Patsy, his wife, name their kids Earl, Robert, Ruth... Aunt Jane escaped the honor! The checks were signed: M. L. Rea and Sons and under that was the initial of the person writing the check.
Some of the men working on the farm at that time were:
In 1929 my grandfather had a $1000 life insurance policy complete. Aunt Jane, the eldest of their three children graduated from high school. My grandparents decided to take a trip to see the west with their children that summer. They would also visit grandmother's college roommate, Ethyl Dell in Los Angeles. The astonishing thing about the trip was that they drove! And, of course, not all of the children wanted to go on the trip, but they were not given an choice in the matter.
They took the southern route out to California, traveling through Texas, New Mexico and Arizona. They visited Albuquerque, Santa Fe and Taos, the last being a dusty Indian village that had already been 'discovered' by such people as Mabel Dodge and Georgia O'Keefe. Travel in the desert was done at night, whenever possible. Hotels were no more than two stories high with rope ladders to escape out the upstairs windows in case of fire. They were very careful about the food they ate as there was no refrigeration in most places and ice was not usually available. My grandfather existed mostly on fried foods such as bacon and eggs. The staple for the ladies was bacon and tomato sandwiches (and you would never think of eating anything with mayonnaise in it!). All my father wanted was a hamburger, but that was strictly forbidden, again because of the lack of refrigeration. Phoenix was a dusty little town with little in it, a far cry from the current version where my cousin Nancy Husband lives.
After visiting Los Angeles and Mabel Dell, the college roommate, they drove up the coast to Monterey and on to San Francisco. They continued north to the Columbia River and followed that as they started back east. Aunt Jane remembers that as the most beautiful drive in the world. One can only imagine what it was like then. They stayed in Klamouth Falls, Oregon, with a former London resident, Dr. Hunt, who was a veterinarian. From there it was on to Yellowstone National Park and on home.
In Montana they encountered the clay road that turn slippery as ice when it rains. Many roads in Montana are just as bad today. Ian Frasier in his book The Great Plains provides a vivid description of these roads when they are wet.
After my grandfather's stroke, his only work at the farm was to mow the lawn. No one lived in the house, but a garden was kept and the lawn was mowed. Grandfather would ride to the farm with his brother in the morning and mow the yard by hand. It was a large yard that would take half a day to mow that way ( I am VERY familiar with the effort it takes to mow that yard!). When he finished, he would walk out onto the state highway going through the farm and stand in the middle of the westbound lane and flag down the first driver that came by going toward town. The driver had no choice but to stop as my grandfather would not move. He would just get in the car and point towards town - he couldn't speak. He always arrived safely, but I would not recommend doing that in today's Madison County.
One of the memories I have of my grandfather is of him eating fried green tomatoes. This was in the late 1940s and I was astonished. In my view of the world, you waited until they ripened. My father told me that in my grandfather's time they lived on what they could grow and store. There was nothing green available in Ohio during the winter, so by springtime they could not wait for something fresh!. Even my father was skilled at gathering wild greens, especially those available early such s dandelions and lambs quarters. Eating green tomatoes was part of the rush to use anything fresh from the garden.
The garden at the farm was quite large, perhaps a quarter of an acre. It was a square with a grass walk around the outside and one grass stip down the middle creating two large rectangles for planting the annual vegetables. Horseradish was grown along the side that was adjacent to the back yard as you entered. On entry, the side to the left had a large grape arbor, the side to the right had asparagus and raspberries grew along back fence. Along the center grass path was a large bed of rhubarb. We were able to eat all summer from the garden and can enough vegetables to carry us through the winter.
There was also a fair-sized orchard, though it was not all in one place. There were sour cheery trees to the left of the drive after you passed the house. There was a good peach tree by the barn and more north of the garden. There was a crabapple tree by the milking barn. I love the jelly that my mother would occasionally make from the sour crabapples. There were some other nondescript apple trees, but the crown jewels were several Early Harvest apple trees. Nothing can equal the applesause made from Early Harvest apples. They were hard to pick, however, because they were so old and so large. These trees only give a good yeild every other year, but there was a good tree in town at Ann Tanner's house on the corner of Walnut and First Street that produced in alternate years from ours. I liked that tree better because it was not as high and much easier to pick. Across the road is a pear tree which is still living, but it does not produce any longer. Age must have something to do with that!