The Start of My Life

I was born on April 11, 1921 to proud parents who now had a boy after having two girls, Marjorie and Rosalie. The birth event happened in the bedroom of a nice house at Maple Lawn farm in the Town of Harmony about 2½ miles south of Milton, Wisconsin. Mother was attended by Mrs. Hudson, who was a nurse and did a lot of midwife work. They both took real good care of me, and I soon grew to be a big boy.

My father and mother both have told me about the big blizzard that came on the 16th of April, when I was only 5 days old. The snow and wind drifted all the roads shut to most everything but horses. My folks did have a Model T Ford. They always talked about how the chickens that they had setting on eggs to hatch in the driveway of the double corncrib were completely covered with drifted snow. They uncovered the hens and took the eggs inside, put them in warm water, and dried them well. After warming and drying the hens, they put the hens back on the eggs, and to their amazement, most of the eggs hatched when the time was right.

My parents must have been proud of me, as on my one year birthday they had my picture taken by a professional photographer and had it colored and mounted in a large oval frame. It hung on the wall of our different homes that Mother & Dad lived in. I still have the picture hidden down on the shelves in the basement. I was a good looking one year old boy. That is where all of you get your good looks.

I want to tell you about the 1918 Model T Ford. It was a sedan with no heater, or air conditioner, or radio. It had three pedals on the floor and a hand brake that also was part of the shifting to make it go. There were two hand levers on the steering column. One was the throttle and the other the spark advance and retarder. The spark had to be retarded every time you cranked it to start it up. You can see it did not have an electric starter.

When the weather was below freezing, Dad would have to drain all the water out of the radiator and the engine block because they did not have antifreeze at that time. He would throw an old quilt or heavy robes over the hood to try to keep some of the heat in the engine as long as he could.

On a cold morning, when Dad had to start the car, there were two different ways he did this. The first way was to get the water in the large tea kettle boiling hot and have some more hot water ready. He would then get out the jack and put it under one of the rear wheels and raise it up to clear the ground real well. He would block the other wheel that was on the ground real good so the car would not run away if it started. When all those things were done, he would bring out the boiling water and fill the radiator with it. He then would crank and pray that it would start real soon. He also had to be sure that the spark was advanced just right or it would kick back on the crank and could break his arm. The reason for jacking up the one wheel was that the oil in the rear-end and transmission was so stiff that he would not be able to turn the crank over. If it did not start within a short time, he would have to drain out all the water from the radiator before it could freeze and break the engine.

The next way to start it was to heat up the water on the stove again, just like before. Dad would then have to harness a team of horses and have Mother get dressed real warm. They would hitch the horses on and pull the old Ford Model T out of the shed that it was stored in. They would pull the car around and line it up in the driveway so that there was room to get it started. He would pour in the boiling hot water again. Mother would take the reins of the horses, slap their rears and off they would go. Dad would let out the clutch and give the gas lever more gas and, most usually, it would start this way.

You can see that in the winter time we did not go in the car very often. It was better to just hitch the horses to a sleigh or wagon in the first place and go with them. In the winter time when we were going to visit friends, the horses were used more than the car.

Another thing that the Model T was used for was sawing wood. A pulley was clamped to a rear wheel, and a belt was run from the jacked-up rear wheel. This would be plenty of power to saw up the logs as they were fed into the saw by hand.

The following years, as I was growing up on the farm, I would be barefoot with just a pair of old bib overalls on in the summertime.

My dad got me a Shetland pony named Bonnie. Oh, what a good time I had with Bonnie. I rode her bare back and hitched her to a buggy. Bonnie was kind of old, but we had her until she was over 30 years old. I took good care of Bonnie. I would hitch her up and haul wood to keep Mother's wood-burning stove going.

This was one of my jobs to do; keep plenty of split wood on the screened-in porch for the cook stove. It was an old cast-iron stove with a large cast-iron top for several things to be cooking at the same time. Below, in the center, was a large oven that mother baked all of our bread and cookies, etc. in. Up above was a warming oven. It was used to keep things warm until served. On the far right-hand side was a large tank that kept several gallons of water used for washing our hands, dishes, etc. We had a large metal dipper to get the water out to use. All of our water had to be pumped and carried in from the well which was about 150 feet from the back door. When I became big enough to carry water in, this also became one of my chores to do. There was a lot of water to carry and wood to chop to make all of the hot water for cooking and baths.

Baths were not as easy to do then as they are now. You have a nice shower or tub to use. We did not have either. We had a wash tub. It was the same one Mother used to do the laundry in every Monday morning, and I do mean every Monday morning.

On Mondays, the large copper boiler was set on top of the stove very early in the morning, and I do mean early, like 4:30 or 5:00, which was about the time Dad and Mother would get up.

We kids would also have to get up early to help with the daily chores of milking the cows and feeding all of our livestock. We always had several cows, usually four horses, Bonnie, maybe 20 to 30 pigs or more, lots of chickens, several cats to keep the mice and rats under control, and a dog; never a house dog. The cats were also farm cats and not house cats. They would roam over several acres of our farm and hunt gophers, also. I am getting carried away here and not telling you about the baths.

In the winter time it was bath time every Saturday night after the chores were done. The wash tub was put in the center of the large kitchen floor, and the hot water was put into the tub and tempered down with cold to suit the touch. The youngest went in first. With Mother's assistance, each one after the other came out of that old wash tub supposedly clean. Once in a while, a little more hot water was put in to bring the water back to be warm enough for the next person. We all bathed in the same water. After the kids were bathed, Mother would come next and Dad would be last in that dirty old bath water. Boy, how we must have been clean. Do you suppose we smelled? Anyway, it was quite a task to crawl into a wash tub to bathe. This tub was no more than three feet across and about a foot deep. We took quite a few sponge baths with the wash cloth and a pan of water.

In the summer, when we were out getting really sweaty and dirty, the baths were daily. Some of the time we used water that had been set out in the sun all day to warm. It was too hot to keep a fire going in the cook stove. It would get awfully hot in the house just doing the cooking and baking.

We had no electricity, running water, or refrigeration. I was a senior in high school before we had any of these things.

The outdoor toilet was a three-holer; each hole of a different size. The smell was terrible. The toilet paper was usually a Sears Roebuck catalog. In the winter the seats would be covered with ice and snow. Some fun! At night we had an enameled pot with a cover on to use. As I got big enough, it would be my job to carry the pot out to the outhouse and dump it the next morning. What fun that was!

When I was five years old, I started to go to school. I started in first grade, as we did not have kindergarten. I went eight years to the Six Corners Grade School. It was one mile from our house, and we had to walk to and from school every day. It did not matter how bad the weather was; we had to walk, as there were no buses or cars to pick us up. The schoolhouse was a nicely built, one-room school with hardwood floors that were varnished every summer.

The entrance doors were at the rear. They opened into a large hallway that ran all across the back of the building. We hung our coats, hats, and scarves on a row of hooks. There was a shelf for us to set our lunch pails on. Most of our lunch pails were half-gallon Karo Syrup buckets. They usually held a couple of sandwiches made with homemade bread and maybe a cookie or piece of cake.

We had to drink water with lunch, as we did not have thermos bottles to carry milk or anything else that was good to drink. The water was from a well with a hand pump. This was out in front of the schoolhouse. The water container was made of crockery and we had a long handled metal dipper to drink from. That was so unsanitary. If someone got a cold, soon everyone would have one.

In the center of the large room was a big furnace that kept us warm in the winter. A neighbor who lived across the road from the school would start the fire in the furnace early in the morning. The teacher would then keep the fire burning all day long. All of us kids would have to carry the wood in from the large wood shed at the rear of the lot. In the winter, when the furnace was used, we would bring a potato and set it on an area of the furnace. Then, at noon-time, we could enjoy a baked potato for lunch.

All across the front of the room were blackboards, pull-down maps and learning charts. The seats were all fastened to the floor in neat rows. There were small seats on one side and larger seats on the other side. The tops lifted up to store your books and paper and pencils. There was an ink-well at the upper right corner of the desk. It was difficult for left handed kids to get at the ink. The pens we used had to be dipped into the ink real often. We did not have ball point pens back then.

Almost every Friday afternoon, late in the day, Miss Peterson, our teacher, would designate one of the older boys to spread by hand the cleaning compound. It was sawdust with a polishing oil in it. This was spread down every row between the seats. Then Miss Peterson would have us put our books and papers away in our desks. The fun was about to begin. We would run and slide up and down between every row of seats to polish the floor. After Miss Peterson thought the floor was polished enough, she would dismiss us for the day. One or two kids were assigned to sweep up all the well-used sweeping compound. This process kept the floor shinning and held down the dust.

At the end of every school day, one or two kids had to take all the blackboard erasers outdoors and clap them together to get all the chalk out of them. They would also take water and wash all the blackboards, so they were clean for the next school day.

Out behind the schoolhouse, at the back of the lot, was a six foot high wood fence that was always kept painted. Next to the fence, on one end, was the woodshed, and then there were two outdoor privies with three holes each and a metal trough in the boys' privy. We did have toilet paper in the school privies. These privies were spaced far enough apart to keep the boys and girls from hearing all the comments being made about the other sex.

There was a ball diamond at one side of the building, and there were two poles spaced apart for a volley ball net. On the other side of the building was a driveway to get wood back to the woodshed and two iron stakes for pitching horse shoes. We used all of these during the fifteen minute morning recess, the one hour lunch break, and the fifteen minute recess in the middle of the afternoon. This all helped to clear our minds and get us back to studying.

It was very confusing to hear the teacher calling each class up to the front of the room and then instructing them and giving them lessons to do. You can visualize, there were eight grades getting instructions in all the various subjects all day long. Our school, I would guess, averaged around 25 to 30 kids of all ages. Miss Peterson had a very difficult job to do, but she was a very dear and good teacher. Everyone listened to her and respected her.

One of the other duties of Miss Peterson was to decorate the Christmas tree with the help of all the kids. She also planed a Christmas program that we had to practice and put on for all our parents one evening. Santa would come at the end of the program and hand out a small gift and candy for each one of us.

We also had a school fund raiser on the first day of May, or near as could be arranged, as long as it did not fall on Saturday or Sunday. The girls and ladies would decorate up a shoe box very pretty and fill it with sandwiches and goodies. These would be auctioned off to the highest bidder. Every boy tried to figure out which box was his favorite girl's. Then he would bid on her box, so that he could sit in one of the cozy little seats and eat the lunch that she and her mother had prepared. The lunches were usually pretty good.

When I was about ten years old, I joined 4H. I worked on garden and pig projects. I took good care of both projects, and at fair time I proudly took some produce and the pig to the Rock County Fair in Janesville.

The next morning when I awoke, I could not walk; my legs were useless. I slid out of bed somehow and bumped down the stairs on my behind. I was paralyzed. Dad carried me out to the car and took me to Dr. Davis; our local doctor in Milton. After examining me he talked to my folks and said that he was pretty sure I had Infantile Paralysis (later called Polio), but he wanted another doctor's opinion. He called in Dr. Vogel, who practiced in Milton Junction. They came back with the verdict; that was what I had. The first treatment they wanted me to have was a blood transfusion. They would prescribe drugs to deaden the pain.

The Health Department put a quarantine on our farm. This meant that my sisters could not go to school or church. Dad could not send the milk to market for a couple of weeks, at least.

My dad and mother did a lot of crying and thinking that day before they would agree to going the way the doctors recommended. They had been taking my sister, Marjorie, to a chiropractor named Dr. Pluess at Edgerton. Marjorie had double curvature of the spine, and Dr. Pluess was helping her a lot. Mother and Dad agreed that I was to see Dr. Pluess before starting the other treatment.

After checking me over, Dr. Pluess looked Mom and Dad in the eye and said, “Yes this is what is called Infantile Paralysis, but if you bring that boy to me every day, I will make him walk again.” This sounded so much better than what the other doctors had told them. They had told the folks and me that they could only help to deaden the pain but could not say if I would ever walk again.

There were quite a few cases in our area and thousands throughout the country at that time, and most everyone that got the disease remained crippled. Most were in wheelchairs or using crutches.

So you can see why my parents wanted Dr. Pluess to treat me. Every day Dad would carry me out to the car and lay me on pillows for the ride to Edgerton. Dr. Pluess would ask me the first thing, “Does it hurt a lot?” When I would answer, “Yes,” he would always say, “Good. Then I know the nerves are still alive and we will nurse them back to being well again, and you will walk again.” He was a great man. He was almost like a God to me.

My mother was the Angel. Mother would massage me and put hot damp towels on me by the hour. She was the best mother that anyone could have. This went on for about four months as I can member, anyway, it was a long time. I started to be able to stand on my feet. We had a round oak table in the dinning room and my mother would make me put one arm around her neck and the other hand on the table. She made me go around and around and around and around some more until I thought I would collapse. She would say, “Come on son. You have got to learn how to walk again.” And walk we did. The treatments by Dr. Pluess and by mother paid off real well. I soon was walking again.

This all happened after the collapse of the stock market and the start of the great depression. My parents were poor. They had lost the farm by that time, and they had no money to pay Dr. Pluess. After I was walking, I can remember as if it was yesterday, my mother said to Dr. Pluess, “My, I don't know how much we owe you in money, but we do thank you for making our son walk again. We will try to pay you.” Dr. Pluess looked at both of my parents and said, “How would $35.00 be? But don't worry about that. Just keep bringing that boy to me until I get him 100%.” This they did, and I never could thank either one of my parents nor Dr. Pluess enough for what they did for me.

Later in life I tried to show my appreciation to Dr. Pluess. The war was going on. Like many critical commodities, meat was rationed and hard to get. I was farming at the time so in the fall I butchered a hog and some chickens and gave them to Dr. Pluess. He thanked me and a couple weekends later, on a Sunday afternoon, Dr. Pluess and his wife drove out from Edgerton to our farm with all sorts of gifts: blankets, clothes, pictures for our wall, and toys for our month old baby girl, Jo Ann. I tried, but I just could not repay him for what he did for me.

I look back and see what happened to most all of the kids that were treated by the medical doctors at that time, and most of them were crippled with the disease. And most died quite young in life. This all happened to me before they called it Polio and before Dr. Jonas Salk and then Dr. Albert Sabin found the medicine that is now taken to prevent the horrible disease. The Sister Elizabeth Kenny treatment that was so publicly spoken of at that time was just like my mother had done for me. She did not get the credit from the public, but she sure did from me.

THANKS MOTHER!