He Leadeth Me

By Glen Schultz

From my birth in Norfolk, Nebraska, to living most of the present years in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, and Opelika (Auburn), Alabama, with this book, I hope to inspire my family and others in their faith. Proceeds from this book go to the Rev. C. Oscar Palmberg Memorial Scholarship Fund. North Park Theological Seminary (Office of Development) 3225 West Foster Avenue Chicago, Illinois 60625 Rev. C. Oscar Palmberg is my wife's grandfather.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Christian Faith Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: May 21, 2020
• ISBN: 9781098023621

Book preview

Chapter 1

The Beginning

One-year-old Glen Schultz, just learning to walk, taken on the Foster farm before moving into Norfolk.

My name is Glen Keith Schultz. I was born on September 28, 1941, to Erwin Martin Schultz and Cleo Ann Mulhair Schultz. I was the last child of eight, born to my dad, Erwin, and the fifth child to my mom, Cleo. As you might imagine, all these brothers and sisters of mine weren’t born overnight and I’ve heard it said that the last thing in the world they expected was when Mom found out she was pregnant. Dad was born in 1892 and Mom in 1900, which would make them fifty and forty-one respectively. That may not seem that old in this day and age, but back in those days, it was a risky event to go through a birth—not to mention the responsibilities of taking care of such a young child out on an unforgiving dirt farm in Nebraska.

Since I will be including my siblings throughout this autobiography, I want to mention them now. Eunice Schultz (May 30, 1914), Dale Schultz (November 10, 1915), and Harlan Schultz (September 5, 1920) were all born to Dad and his first wife, Lois Tarr (who died in childbirth having Harlan). Dad, Erwin Schultz, and my mom, Cleo, make my immediate family which consist of Iris (February 21, 1925), Loyd (January 10, 1929), Evelyn (May 24, 1930), LaVonne (December 16, 1933), and then last but not least, me (September 28, 1941). As you can imagine, all my siblings thought I was just spoiled rotten growing up on the Foster Nebraska farm and not having to get out and milk cows, do the rest of the chores and work the farm. I heard stories from my sisters that they thought it was pretty neat having a baby around as occasionally, they could use me as an excuse to babysit rather than help Mom with her chores and other work that Dad would assign them. Dad got to be a real captain of the ship, so to speak, raising kids like us. I was allergic to pasteurized milk and formula, so Mom nursed me as long as she could. After that, I have no idea what I ate; but everything turned out all right, so I thank the Lord for that. I was big at birth anyway, so I could have been eating beef by the time I was four months old! Ha!

When Mom got close to going into labor with me, Dad took her into Norfolk. I was born in the Lutheran Hospital there. I honestly don’t remember much of anything regarding Foster, Nebraska, and the Foster farm until later on in life. I do remember the move to Norfolk, Nebraska, when I was three. This is the place where I grew up. As a three-year-old, I remember the moving truck backed up to the front porch of 202 North Boxelder Street and the 2×10 planking going across from the truck and up to the porch as the furniture was being moved in from the farm. As I recall, I was in the way a lot and got hollered at quite a bit. I remember the two big stately boxelder trees right in the front yard. The porch had a roofed area with room for about four to six lounging chairs and, of course, the two to three-seat porch swing. As I grew up in this house, the front porch had many wonderful memories. Dad, Mom, and I shared many meaningful as well as funny and scary stories out there.

I also remember the livestock and chickens coming into town. I often wonder what the neighbors thought when the Schultzes arrived in town. We brought in a milk cow named Mary, some pigs, and quite a few chickens. Dad, being a cattleman and dirt farmer all his life, was not about to leave all of that life behind him in his so-called retirement from the farm. I’m not too sure Mom was real keen on this idea, but it wouldn’t have done her any good to argue with Dad about it. I’m sure Loyd, Evelyn, and LaVonne didn’t care for the stigma of the farm coming into town with them either, but I’m sure they would take that anytime rather than staying on the farm and continuing with that life. Me, what did I know? I was only three.

We lived in the basement of the house and were not allowed upstairs, except on special occasions such as Christmas, major holidays, birthdays, or when we had special company like relatives or the pastor from Grace Lutheran Church. In that event, we were instructed to be on our best behavior and we always had to take off our shoes. It’s not that we had expensive carpet on the floors or anything of that kind, but upstairs did have hardwood oak flooring and the living room had a carpeted area rug. As you entered the front door, into the living room, to the immediate left was a den where Mom had the piano, a small sofa, and a hall tree where Mom kept all her picture albums. Many good times were had in that little den, singing, playing the piano, guitar, harmonicas, accordion, and the fiddle. The dining room and bedroom off the living room (which later became my bedroom) and the kitchen had colorful blue, gray, red, and white linoleum. Off the kitchen was Mom and Dad’s bedroom with the indoor bathroom on the north side of the living room which connected to what eventually became my bedroom.

In the basement where we lived until Dad got enough money to add on to the back of the house, Mom had a cob or coal cookstove where she did all the cooking. That stove served as our hot-water heater. It had an old storage compartment for the water next to fire in the stove. There were four burners on the top of the stove and area where you could store pots and pans or keep food hot. Mom was the best cook ever, and I can’t tell you how good her homemade bread tasted coming out of that old stove. And I could go on and on. She made many kinds of pies, cakes, sticky buns, soups, fried chicken, chicken and dumplings, goulash, roast beef, the original big breakfasts with pancakes, waffles, etc., etc., etc. We also did all the canning in the basement on that old cookstove. Mom canned everything that we grew in our garden; and then on special occasions, when we could afford it, we would buy peaches, apples, and other assorted berries that she would make jellies and jams from. We had a coal furnace that we heated the house with until I think I was in seventh or eighth grade, and then Dad had that converted into an oil furnace. The addition, by the way, was built so that Loyd could have a bedroom. Evelyn and LaVonne shared the other one. The only problem was that Dad couldn’t get any heat out there and the insulation was minimal. So in the wintertime, when I had to sleep out there because of company coming, I remember many mad dashes jumping out of bed, up the three steps, and then into the kitchen where Mom generally had the stove going. To complete the basement there was a cellar where Mom kept her canned goods, a coal storage room, an area to wash clothes, a utility large sink, and a corner for the ice box.

In order for Dad to accomplish his goal of bringing his farm livestock with him yet move into the big city of Norfolk (population approximately 12,500), the location and amount of land was critically important. The lot size was approximately three acres and was rectangular in configuration. To the north of the house was a one-car detached garage. North of the driveway to the garage was a small alfalfa field where we could stake out Mary, and it could be used as a garden. To the east of the alfalfa field was a building used as a small granary, small barn area where the livestock could also be brought during inclement weather, and where we could milk Mary. The balance of the area was used as a chicken house with hen boxes where they could lay their eggs and the chicken roost. In front of the chicken house and to the east was the fenced-in livestock area, complete with an electric fence. Out the backdoor of the house, we had a large brome grass field where we got our hay for Mary in the winter and the large vegetable garden to the south.

There were no neighbors to the north of us for over two miles. The owner of the land usually put in popcorn or field corn. To the east of our fence, in the back, the owner had a pasture and a few feeder calves and cattle, so it happened to be a perfect setting for what Dad and Mom had in mind. Mom got to be in the city, and Dad kept a remnant of his love of the livestock and farm life. So it was here that I spent my first twenty-one years of my life.

Chapter 2

The Neighborhood

As it was in most Midwestern small neighborhoods, everybody pretty much knew of or something about everybody else in town. Norfolk and North Boxelder Street was no exception. Norfolk was at the crossroads of Highway 275 (Norfolk Ave.), running east/west, and Highway 81 (Thirteenth Street), running north/south. Boxelder Street is about four miles east of Highway 81, but Boxelder Street intersected Highway 275 and 202 is only one block north of Norfolk Avenue or Highway 275. All the neighbors knew each other on North Boxelder Street, but it was not until I was older than eight or ten years old before I was allowed to go across Highway 275 because of traffic. Jerry Glaser lived right across the street and he had an older mother and father by the name of Mae and George. We had several change of neighbors to the south of us, including Ronnie, Geraldene and Randy Kentfield, and the Foldens at 200 North Boxelder. Mr. and Mrs. Meyers lived in 118 North Boxelder until Mr. Meyers fell off a ladder and hit his head on the ice while trying to knock a huge icicle off the corner of their house. Mr. and Mrs. Stevens and their daughter, Virginia, lived at 116 North Boxelder. Then there were the Liskys and Koehlers with Mary Ann and Phyllis Koehler at 114 North Boxelder, and on the corner of Norfolk Avenue and Boxelder Street, Mrs. Melcher (who, by the way, knew everybody that came up or down Boxelder Street). Across the street from the Glasers, whose house actually faced south on Braash Avenue, was a cornfield which Mr. Gross farmed with an area of about three-quarter of a block. This was a very important feature to the neighborhood as it gave us kids a broad area to hide when we played ditch ’em, kick the can, or hide-and-seek which was diagonally across the street from the one and only streetlight we had on Boxelder in front of the Kentfield house.

From a young age, on through my upbringing, I contributed my share of the responsibility to provide what I could to give back to my family. We didn’t have a lot of extra money for anything other than the basics of life, and we didn’t go shopping just to be doing something to get out of the house for a while. When we did shop, it was for something we couldn’t grow, shoot, butcher, make or do without. I didn’t have a lot of toys to play with, like coloring books, or table games, but Dad and Mom did enjoy playing cards. Their favorite games were pitch, canasta, 500 rummy, and ole sol.

I learned to play along with Harold and Helen Knapp—my uncle and aunt who lived in Norfolk. They used to come over often and I would be able to stay up until about 9:00 p.m. when Mom would give me some of the dessert that they would share later and then send me to bed listening to the laughter and screams after going set or making a wrong play. It was a real treat for me to go over to Jerry Glaser’s house, especially in the wintertime when we would color in his Roy Rogers, Hopalong Cassidy, or Gene Autry coloring books. I think that because he was an only child, his parents treated him to many extra considerations. I would get to share the benefits because we used to get along well and he needed someone to be his friend. Another great pastime was playing cars and trucks. We would take small toy cars and trucks and, in the dirt, make a complete town. We would build bridges, roads, houses, water towers, big buildings, rivers, gulches, ranches, farms—you name it, we would build it. This kind of activity didn’t cost anything and took a lot of time to develop and could be added onto until we got tired of it and knocked it all down and then started all over.

When I got a little older, my responsibilities around the house increased. LaVonne was primarily responsible for milking Mary, feeding the hogs and the chickens, and gathering the eggs. But the older I got, the more she would complain about doing the chores because she got a job working at Hennings Bakery on Norfolk Avenue and Second Street. By the time she walked home from work, it would be too late to do these chores. So unfortunately, it became my job to do all the chores. That meant I would have to feed the hogs, pigs, chickens, and Mary, and then do the milking and separating of the milk. Then I would have to wash down the entire separator and all the discs.

The only way I found out how to delay all this work so LaVonne would have to give me a little help was to practice on either the piano or violin. One thing I didn’t want to do though was to make things drag on so long that the whole family would miss listening to the radio after supper. Our special programs were The Lone Ranger, The Squeaking Door, The Fibber Magee and Molly Show, and The Amos and Andy Show. This was one of the highlights of the evening. I can’t remember doing much in the way of reading, writing, and arithmetic, but I did more and more of that as I got older. One thing I do remember was every summer, I went to the Norfolk Public Library and took part in the City Reading Club requirements. This was always looked at more of a chore than enjoyment. This reading of some twenty-five to fifty books would usually take place after supper which made radio time that much harder to accomplish. I would learn to regret that attitude as I got into my later high school and college years!

Growing up, I thought everybody had some kind of a garden because all our immediate neighbors had one. The size was always dependent on how many were in the family and how much canning was expected to be done by the canning personnel of the house. While Loyd, Evelyn, LaVonne, and I were there, it was a sizeable amount of food that was necessary to get along adequately and a lot of canning to be done, along with the fresh produce right out of the garden. How many times I remember Mom telling me to go out and get a dozen ears of corn, a bunch of radishes, and enough peas to go with the fried chicken we would be having for dinner. Oh, and, Glen, don’t forget to pick enough leafy lettuce for the cream salad I’m making, Mom would say.

It didn’t take long before I figured out that after you put the seeds in the ground, the garden needed a lot of tender loving care before you could harvest the bounty. This would generally become a family affair with lots of hoes, shovels, rakes, and gloves for pulling large weeds available for all of us kids to use. Watering of the garden on those warm sunny summer days would also be necessary, and this too would normally be done in the late afternoon or early evening. Fertilizer for the garden came from the small inside barn area where we did all our milking in the wintertime as well as the shelter from the cold and blizzards for all the livestock.

The chicken roost was an ongoing source of good compost throughout the spring-growing season. The strawberry patch seemed to take an exceptional liking to this application as I remember many trips with the wheelbarrow full of chicken manure and spreading it all over those strawberry plants. Boy, how those strawberries would grow. They were not huge in size like you see in the Safeway Store, but they would be so tasty and sweet you wouldn’t even think of putting any kind of sweetener on top of a bowl of strawberries and milk. On occasions when we had so many strawberries we couldn’t eat them or give them away, Mom would run an advertisement in the local Norfolk Daily News: Fresh Strawberries Right Out of Our Garden Delivered to Your Door. 50 cents per pint. Call 371-1470. Mom would have so many calls that we would have to turn people and their orders away. Dad would drive and I would go up to the door with the berries and collect. I could never understand why some people would give me more money than Mom had marked on top of the little brown bag that we delivered the flimsy green container filled with the strawberries. I thought to myself, How can people have so much money that they can pay me and give me more money just to walk up and give them the bag of berries? They did smell good though, and we washed