Uncle Martin's Family: A Memoir

By Joyce Konzem Pertl

Uncle Martin was a man with a vivid memory and the God given gift of storytelling and rhyme. He spent the first 40 years of his life with his parents caring for them while they were earth bound. During those years he absorbed facts about his ancestors and enjoyed passing those stories on when opportunity arose.

His stories are gathered together in this manuscript for his posterity and others to enjoy. The time spans four generations and from the Civil War to World War II. There are stories about scoundrels and about heroes. A greater portion covers the years of the Great Depression in the state of Kansas when he was growing up with his brothers and sisters. Many of the included stories are about everyday living at a time when everyone was struggling to make it to the next day. He testifies there were no crops, no jobs, and no money.

No matter what generation you are a part of you are sure to enjoy a true testimony of that time period as well as his personal view of family members and their antics. As with all families there were some he liked and approved of and others he viewed with skepticism and a little distaste.

Uncle Martin passed away at the age of 89 before his stories could be published but he looked forward to that accomplishment. His family is very grateful to him for his effort as he was our last link to past family history.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Nov 15, 2012
• ISBN: 9781475954159

Joyce Konzem Pertl

Joyce Konzem Pertl is retired and has always loved reading and chose to write a book of family stories told to her by her uncle. She and her husband currently live on a Kansas farm. She enjoys the outdoors and surrounding animals. She is a mother, grandmother, and great grandmother.

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Uncle Martin’s

FAMILY

A Memoir

JOYCE KONZEM PERTL

iUniverse, Inc.

Bloomington

Uncle Martin’s Family

A Memoir

Copyright © 2012 by Joyce Konzem Pertl.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

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ISBN: 978-1-4759-5414-2 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4759-5415-9 (ebk)

iUniverse rev. date: 11/12/2012

Contents

Preface

Introduction

History

Life In Depression Years

John Ulrich Spiess

Lewis Spiess

Charles George Spiess

Samuel King

George Miller

Agnes (Miller) Spiess

Uncle Ed Long and Maggie (Miller) Long

The Charles and Agnes Spiess Family

John L Spiess

Bernard C Spiess

Rose Elizabeth (Spiess) Konzem

Catherine Agnes (Spiess) Gross

Martin Francis Spiess

Epilogue

Just Say Thanks

The Senior King and Queen Parade

To Fern who encouraged

me to record my stories for posterity,

and to those nieces and nephews who

hounded me to leave them family history

that only I knew.

Preface

Collecting material for this book, and putting it together took several years and many miles. Uncle Martin was a born story teller and hungered for knowledge from the time he began his education in a county school house in the years before the Great Depression affected this country. He was a man who loved people and enjoyed observing them. He had an open mind and listened before he spoke.

I remember being a young girl and looking forward to our family trips to New Almelo, Kansas. We children enjoyed the time and the many things Uncle Martin gave us to pacify us so he could also spend time with the adults. I am sure we heard many of the stories disclosed in the following pages several times over but never appreciated them until we grew older and had life experiences of our own.

Much of the family history was unknown to us, even though we heard pieces of many stories. It took several years of trips to Colorado to gather his stories and put them in the right order; and then figure out who was who before their dialogue made sense, and followed a path we could understand.

My mother grew up with him and later married a farmer. They were busy with daily work thereafter. I don’t think she knew much of the material he documented and passed along to us because she began working at an early age and those things were not important to her at that time. Education was not considered that important either. In those days not many people felt they needed a higher education since life was simple and professional people, teachers, doctors, and lawyers were the educated society. I think Uncle Martin was still learning much of his ancestry long after the rest of the family had left home, He was alone with my grandparents, and spent quality time with them as he cared for their needs. His siblings were busy raising their families and did not have that time with their parents.

In the long evenings before television he took correspondence courses relating to engineering. He had a great thirst for a mechanical things and how they worked. The searching gave him enormous pleasure. His room was a library of books on everything from the universe to engine repair.

One of his brothers, Barney, endured a long siege as a member of this country’s fighting force in World War II. I owe special thanks to cousin, James Spiess, for allowing me to use his documentary of Barney’s time in service for his country. The author of Just Say Thanks, a synopsis of Uncle Martin and Aunt Fern’s accomplishments, and contributions to their church and community of Berthoud, Colorado is unknown to me. Uncle Martin told me I should use it, when he did not seem anxious to write about himself. Some of the information was never a part of what I saw in him as his niece.

There is a family tree included, and each chapter is about a particular character and their place in our family history. Sometimes Uncle Martin strayed a bit in his story telling, but as you know, one thought leads to another, and each bend in the road brings more to our attention. This is part of being a real storyteller.

It is my hope you enjoy the stories of a time that our country was in trouble, but its citizens found a way to survive, and take pleasure in helping one another. They grew to enjoy life even though it was hard. They accepted each day’s challenge, and gleaned satisfaction from living through it, and then moving on to another day.

01%20jpg%20Martin%20Spiess1.jpg

Martin F Spiess

Introduction

These are stories, as I remember them, in my own words, realizing that in this day and age with my lack of formal education, I would be considered not very well educated.

My two brothers, John and Barney, were much older than I, and didn’t care to be bothered by a small kid brother. My two sisters, Rose and Cathy, were pals so I had to find my own entertainment.

Home, at the time of my childhood, had few books. There was a Bible, a large thick book on home health care showing how to treat injuries as well as sickness, and another on animal care. My Grandfather, Lewis Spiess, had in addition to the above, a book on the Russian Korean War with many pictures. Because of the pictures, that was my favorite book. He also had a book relating to how the mind functioned, and another one on studying the Scriptures.

As a little tyke I liked to listen to my parents, uncles, and aunts, as well as their old friends talking about things that had happened to them and to their parents or other older people. This was interesting to me and I absorbed all that I heard. They were what is now called, talking books, and fascinated a little shaver. I stayed out of the way, and just listened. Questions were a good way to be told to go out and play somewhere, Don’t bother us.

When still a youth I started making notes that after awhile had no organization. This led to a mass of miscellaneous information that was difficult to get together and make sense to anyone but myself. I have organized my collection and this is what you will read and see in our family stories.

History

New Almelo’s first school was located in a dugout on George Miller’s land, north and east of the dugouts of the George Miller family home. The land donated by Miller could be used for as long as it was a school. This was in 1884, and was taught by Maggie Reichert. She taught from 1884 to 1886 when a frame school house was built a quarter of a mile north, and acrossed from the cemetery of St Joseph’s Church. The building, No. 13, was used for teaching students until November, 1886. Upon completion of the new stone church in 1900, the old basement church was converted into a parochial school. Lower grades were taught in the parochial school, and the higher grades in District No 13 School. The arrangement continued until 1907, when the enrollment dropped so low in District No 13 that it was no longer used for education, but was used as a voting place and for dancing. It became the community center.

In around 1922, another room was added to the south of the parochial school. This was the one I and my brothers and sisters, attended through the eighth grade. In the same year a home was built to be a convent for the nuns, who became our teachers instead of lay persons. In 1951, I along with the rest of the men in the parish, under the supervision of a retired construction foreman, built the new school. The brick work, stone work, cabinets, and the heating and plumbing were all subcontracted with parish men acting as helpers to the professional workmen.

While I was around the old No 13 was used for many things. One use was for box suppers. The fairer sex would fix a nice lunch in a box and after an evening of entertainment, an auction was held with the young men bidding against each other for a box. The highest bidder had the privilege of eating the lunch with the young lady who had made the lunch. She would clue her boyfriend as to which box was hers and he was expected to buy her box. That worked well, but when a certain young man started bidding lively instead of just keeping the auction going, the rest of the boys would see how much they could make him pay to get his girl’s lunch. It was not unusual for baked goods come up for bids, and not find out whose it was after winning it. One time a beautiful cake with white frosting was auctioned off. It looked delicious. When the winner obtained a knife and was going to divide it up, the cake turned out to be a two layer. Each layer was a dried cow patty, nicely trimmed; however, the purchaser had no sense of humor, and became really upset. Another time a box of cookies looked super. They turned out to be fakes. The cookie was cut out of cardboard. The top that should have been marshmallow was cotton. Only the icing on the outside was real.

I bought a cake once; paid for it and placed it on the bench I was sitting on. It wasn’t long before a cake that looked just like it was auctioned off. Before the buyer got it back to where he was sitting, someone grabbed it from his hands, and rushed it up to be sold again. The crowd got into the spirit of the action, and if I remember right, that cake was sold four or five times before someone bought the cake, paid for it, and ran out the side door with it. It turned out that it was my cake that started it all.

Life In Depression Years

Education was different in the 30s. The formal years of education had very little to do with the true amount of knowledge one attained in a lifetime through reading and pursuing one’s interests. Self education was not unusual. Les Prout was a man that I personally knew, who was both an electrical and mechanical engineer of unusual abilities. Another studied law; they called it reading the law. He didn’t pass the bar exam required to becoming legal to practice law, but he knew more law than most lawyers. He was Bill Lunney of Lenora, Kansas.

Another was Doc Nickleson. As a kid he used to drive his grandpa, a veterinarian, on his calls. Young Nick also assisted his grandfather in his practice; with the grandfather explaining the particular procedure as he practiced, and answering the young man’s questions. As a result Nick had a private tutor. When Grandpa Nickelson passed, young Nick took over the veterinary practice. His granddads cliental knew him and trusted him.

Finally other veterinarians requested the law stop him from practicing, because he had no license. This may sound fishy, but a vet over at the county seat, got the veterinarian school at Manhattan, Kansas to accept him on some very unusual terms. Nick had to attend school for a year, no favors, and then pass the same examination as any other student as part of their education. The intern veterinaries went out into the surrounding country to doctor animals, and Nick went with them. At first he was resented and untrusted. Many attempts were made to show him up and question his knowledge. Finally he was accepted, and when he came back to the old Nickleson homestead to practice his profession, he was extremely well liked for his veterinarian skills as well as his personality.

These are some of the people that improved themselves. At the present time, you must graduate from a qualified educational institution. The change came during the Second World War. After that time you had to have the necessary credits from an accredited school. Whether that is good or bad, that is just the way it is.

There was a great difference in the rural social structure in the 1930s and the current time. No allowances were paid to children of a family. They did not even know what it was. I never heard of such a thing when I was a youth.

Youngsters were provided with shelter, clothing, food, and education. In turn they were expected to develop farming skills or whatever they chose to do, and good work habits. They were taught to intermingle socially with family, relatives and members of the community.

Boys had no income except from trapping or working for a neighbor if they were not needed at home at that time. The money was theirs. This did not happen until they were age 16 or older. They needed a mature body to do the work of an adult. In a straight exchange of labor, they could be sent instead of their parents, and work in their place. No money changed hands except for difference in days worked. It was the same for girls, who worked for the wives of other families if not needed at home. The rules of family structure were the same for girls and boys.

This was an important in the development of children. Work ethics they would use for a lifetime were developed, and value of good relationships with friends and neighbors were established. The community was an extension of the family in an ever widening circle.

In a rural area of that time, neighbor looked after neighbor. A radical change in a neighbor’s activity would be reason for a neighbor to find an excuse to casually drop by to see if help was needed. It was a matter of survival.

During harvest, as you know, a person worked from 4:00 a.m. to 10:30 p.m. or perhaps as late as 12:00 p.m. The day started with chores and ended with chores. Harvest lasted, depending up on acreage, weather, and equipment, from a month to maybe 6 or 8 weeks. The shortest harvest season I remember was 4 weeks.

At the end of harvest there was a mental and physical letdown. With the long hours and the stress of watching the sky for a hailstorm to wipe out the crop, that took two years to grow from summer fallowing, to planting, to harvesting. Many people felt like a zombies for a few days as their body and mind took an earned rest.

It was at this time that the county fairs came to our part of the country. A time to do lighter work, such as working the summer fallow for the last time before planting wheat in the fall for next years crop. This was a time to catch your breath. The Fair was here! Do the chores and give the kids a dollar or two for the midway. The older ones watched the series of baseball between the local teams. Lunches were packed but the kids would buy cotton candy, popcorn that was too salty, and, of course, pop to cure the taste of salt in the mouth. The pop stand was always right next to the popcorn stand.

Fair time and Christmas were the two special times in a country kid’s life. Usually this money was the only money received during the year. Other than that, you were supplied with food, shelter, and adult supervision as you developed your life’s skills. Work, yes, there was always plenty of work.

At Christmas time, the younger ones would get a toy, only one. There were, however, always new work clothes. For the boys there would be overalls, shirts, socks and underwear, and lots of nuts and candy. This was the only time of plenty as far as sweets were concerned. The rest of the year, maybe an ice cream cone or a bottle of pop, when Dad went to the store with cream and eggs to trade out in groceries, clothing, or dry goods every week or so. This always occurred on Saturday evening after chores.

I forgot the oranges. When I smell an orange, I always associate it with Christmas. We had oranges only at Christmas. Apples, of course, we always had.

There were probably four kinds of apples. There were the pie apples, a bit tart, but good for pies. Granny was a popular variety. The red Delicious and the mellow, yellow Delicious were early eaters. As winter approached, other varieties such as McIntosh, Winesap, and Jonathan would mellow in storage to give you fruit all through winter. After work on a weekend we had an apple. After smelling and admiring it we would polish it on our sleeve, and look at it for the last time before eating it and savoring every bite. Our luxuries were few, so the memories remain bright in our minds.

Social activities except for June weddings were sparse. Oh, there was an occasional visit on Sunday after church services with a neighbor or relative. After eating a fried chicken dinner with mashed potatoes and brown gravy as the main course, the children played and older children and adults talked or perhaps played cards. Sometimes musical instruments were played or they sang and danced. In the evening, farming families had to go home as the evening’s chores had to be done. Not often the visiting was done in the evening after chores were completed. That was usually a special occasion such as a birthday or a wedding dance.

It is strange, but farm folks didn’t count chores as work, even though, they were. Work was field work or baking the weeks’ supply of bread. But chickens had to be fed, eggs gathered, cows milked, and the milk separated for the cream. The calves were fed the skim milk. Horses needed to be fed and harnessed or unharnessed as the case may be. Hogs always needed water and grain. That wasn’t work? I always thought it was even if it wasn’t counted as work.

After doing the chores in the evening it was dark or dusk. Kerosene lamps were lit and supper was eaten in their reddish light. After cleaning up the dishes everyone went to bed as 4 a.m. came soon, too soon.

In winter the working hours eased up somewhat, so there was more time for parties and dances. Of course, the corn had to be husked by hand. The livestock, while having buffalo grass pasture to graze, also had to be fed. The horses required extra feed for the hard work they performed on the farm. The other livestock feeding stayed the same.

Because we lived on the banks of the north fork of the Solomon River, we had timber. We cut trees and split the wood for firewood to keep warm, and worked the best of the tree into fence posts. Two and a half ax handle lengths was the length of a post. This length allowed one resetting after the first setting had rotted off. The posts rotted off just about ground level. Worms combined with rot would destroy the post in about four to five years if it was left untreated. We saved our old motor oil in an open fifty gallon barrel. The used oil was later diluted with kerosene. You could soak fence posts that had the sap dried fairly well for a month, making a post so treated, good for twenty or thirty years.

Another method that was used was stacking the aged posts in a crisscross stack, and setting them on fire. When the surface of the posts was sufficiently charred, you would put out the fire. Sometimes a farmer, not wanting to just stand there watching the blaze, would do something else. There was always something else to be done, but the fire would be forgotten for a bit too long and a lot of work ended up in ashes.

The piles of ear corn had to go through a curing process so it would keep. This was because the farmers started husking in the field before it had completely dried. When dried, it was shelled by someone who had a corn sheller, who went around the community with the sheller and a tractor to power it. From the sheller the corn was hauled to a bin or grainery until it was sold.

Winter was a time for listening to the radio, after it was available, reading the weekly newspaper, playing cards, or story telling after the day’s work was done and supper was eaten. Of course, the children of school age had studies to be done. No kid got out of that. The older adults liked to tell stories of interesting things that had happened. Prairie fires, great floods and blizzards of terrible severity, stories about their ancestors, unusual neighbors, people and feuds among other things. We had bad feelings among a few families just like any other community. The story telling took the place of story books. Such books were almost unknown. A bible, an atlas, and dictionary were among the few books in most homes. Oh yes, two other books were always there. One was on home medicine, and the second on home veterinarian medicine for treating livestock. This as I remember was our total book collection other than school books.

Farm labor for many decades was at the rate of one dollar a day plus meals and room. You worked, depending upon the season, from eight to ten or eleven hours a day. An accurate description is the old saying from see to can’t see. In the depression any work available had several people competing for it. The Demplewolfs, who lived in New Almelo in the old Henry Hickson house, worked for Jerome Hickson for seventy-five cents a day, eating breakfast and supper and home, as well as sleeping there. Times were hard.

For the house dances, held after the heavy summer work was past, the word was spread by telling friends, who in turn told their friends, that so and so was having a house party. The house used would be scrubbed and cleaned from top to bottom before the party date. The furniture was moved out of the rooms used for dancing. Two or maybe three rooms were so cleared, depending on the space on hand. Sandwiches were made; coffee was boiled up in the evening just before cars started to arrive. Kerosene lamps were cleaned, filled, and lit before being placed in different rooms. Lanterns were hung on the front and rear, so people could see their way into the house.

Fiddles, guitars, and banjos were tuned. Usually dances started with a popular song in two step time. After a couple of numbers the dancers started calling for a square dance. Squares were formed and the square dance caller began his chant. For the rest of the evening there was a square dance and then a waltz so the dancers could catch their breath. About 10 p.m. everything would stop for a lunch of sandwiches, cake, and coffee that those present brought to help out with the party. After lunch the dancing was resumed and continued until midnight. Those attending would thank the host and hostess and go to the bedrooms. There the young children and babies were sleeping. They collected their offspring and went back to their homes. The parties were usually on Saturday or Sunday night. Three or four weeks later the word would go out from another family that another party was to be at their home on a certain day.

In those depression years in Norton County and surrounding areas, we raised no crops to sell for eight years. There was no income from crops. There weren’t enough forage crops to feed the cattle and horses through the winter. Russian thistles were cut in the bloom stage, before the thorns formed and cured. A layer of thistles was stacked as the base of the haystack. Salt was sprinkled over the layer. Layer by layer the stack was added to and topped out. Salt was used to make this poor fare palatable. Hay was trucked in from the Nebraska ranch country to feed the horses since they wouldn’t eat the thistle hay, until they were starved to do so.

At that time, the price of corn was so low that it was cheaper to burn ear corn than to buy coal. I saw it done when I was very small. I can still hear the corn popping as it burned, as well as the smell of corn all through the house. We cooked our food using corn as fuel. When prices were better, corn cobs from which the corn kernels had been removed by a corn sheller were burned. We also cut up old tires and burned them. They made one heck of a hot fire so were favored to heat water on wash day. The smell of burning rubber was not a pleasant odor.

When the depression began in the early thirties, money became a scarce item. When we lived at Grandpa Spiess’ place, Dad and the older boys thought we would have wheat, corn, and feed crops the following year. That didn’t happen. On my mother’s orders, we spent a lot of time with a wheel barrow collecting and hauling prairie coal, which was well dried cow patties. We hauled them to Granddad’s coal shed to keep them dry and handy for