Dirt Road Diary: Recalling a Country Childhood

By Ken Weyand

A journalist recalls growing up on a farm in northeast Missouri, where his only connection with the outside world was a dirt road. Recollections include farm animals, old-time vehicles, a one-room country school, fairs, hikes in creek-beds, party lines, and the foibles of rural life.

Illustrated with family photographs, “Dirt Road Diary” covers the years before the author’s college days. Its time-line begins in the late 1930s where his other book, “An Unlikely Love Story” leaves off.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Ken Weyand
• Release date: Sep 9, 2015
• ISBN: 9781311341914

Ken Weyand

After receiving a degree in Journalism at the University of Missouri, Kenneth Charles Weyand worked ten years for the "Kansas City Star", becoming Advertising Copy Chief. Later he published several publications, including "Discover North", a monthly history and travel newspaper. After expanding the distribution from a single county to more than nine states, Weyand sold the publication in 2001, but continued to write for the paper, renamed "Discover Vintage America". For the past ten years, he has written a monthly history and travel column, “Traveling with Ken.”"Fiddling with Friends in the 1920s: A Chautauqua Trouper’s Story" is Ken's first book, capturing the life of his mother who, as a young woman, left her small town behind for a great adventure and a chance to get a first-hand look at a changing America in the early 20th Century. A much larger book, "An Unlikely Love Story," tells the unique story of two people from vastly different backgrounds who overcame great odds to begin a new life in the country during the depths of the Depression.The author's own remembrances of a country life are recounted in "Dirt Road Diary: Recalling a Country Childhood." It picks up where “An Unlikely Love Story” leaves off, and includes a lot of country-style memories. Both books will be published in the near future.Another book, "Early-Day Flying in Kansas City", based on a similar history published in 1970 and including material not in the original book, was released in October 2015.Weyand’s passion is kayaking, particularly in Florida. He is currently working on two eBooks on kayaking, both non-fiction, and plans to release them in the near future."Lost in the Everglades and Other Florida Paddling Adventures" recalls a harrowing experience, but is balanced with other experiences that were equally adventurous but more successful. If you’re a paddler or would like to be, you’ll enjoy reading this one."A Florida Paddling Bucket List" is currently being compiled for paddlers (and would-be paddlers) looking to make the most of their free time on Florida rivers, creeks and estuaries, with helpful tips on where to launch and take out, and what to expect at each location. Factoids of local history are included.Contact Ken at [e-mail].

Book preview

Dirt Road Diary

Recalling a Country Childhood

By Ken Weyand

Copyright 2015 by Ken Weyand

Smashwords Edition

A Kyakker Book, in partnership with Caroline Street Press

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used in any manner

whatsoever without the written permission of the author/publisher;

except in the case of brief quotations embodied in reviews

The author is indebted to his daughter, Holly Weyand,

who designed the cover of this book

and provided editing and production expertise.

He is also indebted to his mother for recording much of his

early life in her daily journals and taking many snapshots,

and for preserving both the journals and the snapshots.

CONTENTS

Introduction

In the Beginning

Granger

Hillcrest Farm

Animals

Black Oak School

County Seat Towns

Vintage Vehicles

Going to the Fair

Farming with Tractors

High School Days

The Long Hike

Picking Peaches in Colorado

The King Midget

Rafting on the Mississippi

About the Author

Postscript

Back to the Beginning

Introduction

There’s something special about living on a dirt road. Growing up on one gave me some unique memories.

People living on dirt roads are considered impoverished. Appalachia comes to mind, or parts of the rural South. But in the early 1900s, most Americans, rich or poor, who didn’t live on paved city streets, lived on dirt roads. And it took awhile for dirt roads to cease being synonymous with country living.

Dry weather meant dust; rains and melting snow meant mud. The mud was worse because it kept rural families from reaching hard-surfaced roads and neighboring towns. It meant different things to different members of my family.

My grandfather began his career as a rural mail carrier in 1910, driving a horse-drawn carriage over special roads devoted to the post office’s Rural Free Delivery program, or RFD routes. Some were initially barely-improved dirt roads that turned to mud when it rained. My grandfather sometimes splashed through rain-swollen streams and even got his bottom wet wading across a flooded creek to deliver mail to an isolated address, according to an item in the county newspaper.

My mother experienced dirt roads in the 1920s while traveling on the Redpath-Chautauqua circuit as a violinist and vocalist with various troupes. Most of her three years of touring had been to towns on rail lines. But in 1924, touring with the John Ross Reed Company, the troupe played small towns in northwest Missouri a few miles off the railroad.

My mother suffered this 1924 mishap in a Model T when her Chautauqua troupe tackled a muddy road in western Missouri.

Heavy rains had turned the dirt roads to mud, and the troupe’s Ford sedan slid into the grader ditch more than once. By the time they arrived at their Chautauqua tent, the performers were disheveled and nearly exhausted, but the show went on.

Three years later, when she was teaching at the Des Moines University Conservatory of Music, my dad struggled to court her, driving from his farm in northern Missouri. His well-used Model T Ford, with its narrow tires and high road clearance, was ideal for short trips on country roads. But the 150 miles to Des Moines, mostly in mud and rain, presented a real challenge.

He had to change one of the Model T’s tires at least twice on the trip, a process that would be daunting today, but totally different in 1927. Unlike today’s cars, when a tire went flat on a Model T, the operator removed it from the wheel -- which stayed on the car – took the tube out, patched it, and re-inserted it in the tire, then pumped it up with a hand-pump included in the car’s tool kit. If the tube was improperly inserted in the tire, it wouldn’t hold air, and the process would have to be repeated. The task would have been difficult enough in dry weather; in the rain and gumbo mud of southern Iowa, it must have been nearly impossible. But my dad prevailed; although when he arrived at Des Moines he was far from courtship ready, according to comments my mother made in her diary.

In March 1929, during the second year of their marriage, my mother wrote in her daily journal that she needed to get to Kahoka to give piano lessons, but the roads were terrible. We borrowed P.D.’s buggy to go to town, she wrote. The next evening, my dad met her at Granger with a team and a big wagon.

When I was a boy, the nearly four miles from our farm to the nearest blacktop in the village of Granger was a dirt road – dusty in dry weather and greasy mud when it rained. Most of it was on an RFD (or Rural Free Delivery) mail route, which meant the county maintenance crew graded it occasionally. Other times, my dad would pull a homemade road drag over the road with a tractor, smoothing out the ruts. But invariably the rains would come, and make a mess of things. In the winter, ice and drifting snow often made the route impassable.

Some of the dirt roads around our farm were mostly clay, which turned into the worst kind of mud – sticky and slippery at the same time. For a small child, just navigating through such mud was a frustrating challenge. I can remember wearing boots that the mud would hold fast with every step. I would walk out of one, take a step, and find myself retracing my step to get back into the boot. In such conditions, walking a half-mile to the country school could take awhile.

Living on a dirt road meant that plans frequently were canceled when dirt changed to mud. There were times when a weekend trip to my dad’s sister and stepmother in Hamilton, Illinois, was washed out, and we were stuck on the farm. Often, a longed-for outing to one of the county seat towns would be called on account of rain. That meant no visits to the dime store in Memphis for a small toy, or (a few years later) a Saturday matinee at the small theater, or a milkshake at the drug store.

This is a book of personal recollections. But in many cases details are filled in, using notes my mother made in her diary. So in some ways she became my co-author as I retraced the dirt roads of my youth.

Also, I give special thanks to my daughter, Holly, who provided cover design and other graphics, plus editing and valuable advice.

Return to the Beginning

In the Beginning

Farm families in Northeast Missouri were still in the grip of the Great Depression in 1937 when a doctor delivered me by Caesarian Section at what was then Graham Hospital in Keokuk, Iowa, about 40 miles from our farm. Before I was born, my mother, who was 42 going on 43, had endured two pregnancies, both miscarriages, and both were boys. I was her last try, and destined to be an only child whose parents were older than those of my friends.

My parents shared strong religious beliefs, a zeal for temperance and clean living, and a large measure of intellectual curiosity, but they came from widely different (although modest) backgrounds. My dad, one of eight children, was orphaned at seven and spent his early years in the homes of rural uncles and cousins, learning to be a farmer. My mother, an only child, studied music and became a teacher and Chautauqua performer. They had attended different colleges, where both had worked to pay their own way. Introduced by my dad’s cousin, they met, became engaged after only a couple of dates, and were married on New Years Day in 1928. They took no honeymoon trip, instead devoting all their free time to remodeling the old house at what they called Hillcrest Farm. They were unique in our farming community, where college-educated people were fairly rare. My mother’s classical music background was even more rare in a culture with an almost religious devotion to country music.

Yours truly at six months

The nearest of our neighbors lived a quarter-mile from our farm, but most were much farther away. A week could pass without seeing any of them. Then the weekend would come, with supplies and groceries to buy at Granger, a village four miles from our farm, and at county seat towns a few more miles away. Sunday church services meant seeing some new (mostly older) faces at the little church in Granger. And Sunday might be a day for visiting relatives as far away as Hamilton, Illinois, where two of my aunts lived with my step-grandmother.

Some early adventures

One of my earliest memories of Hamilton dates back to a summer Sunday in 1941 when I was four. My Aunt Florence, my dad’s oldest sibling, had taken my parents and me to Lakeview, a private club on Cooper Lake, formed by the Keokuk Dam on the Mississippi River. My aunt was a social worker, and one of the few women in those days with lifeguard training. I think she was working at the time at Friendly House in Keokuk, with a group aiding underprivileged children.

Lakeview Club had a small beach area with a water slide, made from a traditional playground slide. A pipe at the top poured water onto the metal chute to keep things speedy. Youngsters could climb the slide from the beach, and zip down the long slide into three or four feet of water. In the days before fancy water parks, it was considered a rare treat.

With my Aunt Florence after my underwater adventure

On my first journey down the slide, I waited until the big kids got out of the way, then climbed up the ladder and zipped down the chute. I splashed into the water and immediately went under, causing my parents to gasp as I disappeared under the water. But my aunt was there to make sure I was OK, and I recall going back for more. There are only faded snapshots of my aunt and me in the water, with no video records of my first underwater adventure.

Growing up an only child in an isolated area meant that much of my earliest play was solitary. I built miles of pretend-roads for toy cars in a sand pile behind the garage, carried on lengthy conversations with chickens as they scratched for insects