Russ' Vintage Iron

A Look at Farm Life Nearly 100 Years Ago

Russ Quinn
By  Russ Quinn , DTN Staff Reporter
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(DTN file photo)

Over the years I have written about some of my farming ancestors and their vintage tractors after they stopped farming with horses. The Quinns and the Grimms (my paternal grandmother's maiden name) farmed in our home area west of Omaha just a few miles apart.

Both of my great-grandfathers, James E. Quinn and Adolph Grimm, bought tractors as well as vehicles for the first time in the 1920s. Both men purchased Fordson Model F tractors for their farms, as the Fordson was really the first widely popular tractor.

I have an old photo of the Grimms loading loose hay into their barn using their Fordson and we also still have the owner's manual for the tractor owned by my great-grandpa Quinn. My grandpa, John B. Quinn, used to say the old Fordson ran so hot it would singe the hairs on his legs from under the cuff of his overalls as he drove it.

I thought of these stories recently as one of my dad's cousins gave him a copy of an autobiography written by one of his aunts more than 30 years ago. These five pages were extremely fascinating to me as someone who enjoys both family genealogy and agricultural history.

The focus of the aunt's story was growing up to getting married, a time running from the 19-teens to the mid-1930s.

My grandma, Goldie (Grimm) Quinn, and Aunt Gladys (Grimm) Zeis were born in 1910 and 1912 to their German immigrant father, Adolph Grimm, and a Bohemia immigrant mother, Antoinette (Malek) Grimm. There were to be seven Grimm children -- Alvin, Adolph II, Oswald, Goldie, Gladys, Vernon and Robert.

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They lived on a farm along the banks of the Elkhorn River south of Waterloo, Neb., although the children attended school in nearby Elkhorn. Originally their farm was 40 acres, but another Grimm farm was added and the farm expanded to 240 acres.

Her story of growing up on the farm during this point in American history shines a light on how little farm families had then. But at the same time, to me it sounded like she did have an enjoyable childhood.

The Grimms had no electricity or indoor plumbing and she wrote about being so cold in the winters as a little girl. There were nine people living in the small farmhouse, so small the youngest two boys, Vernon and Robert, did not even have a bedroom, they slept on the couch in the living room.

She talked about walking to school two-and-half miles one way every day -- before the family got their first car. Their path to school was often too muddy for a car even when they did have one.

Speaking of vehicles, she also told of my great-grandfather Grimm buying their first car. As he drove the car home and into lane, he couldn't stop the car before hitting a cattle gate and scratching the paint of the car. She said he was bellowing "Whoa!" before hitting the gate as if he was still riding a horse.

She wrote about different aspects of childhood from helping her mother on the farm to playing in the grove of trees near the house with my grandma, specifically playing house by making piles of soil for their "houses." Regardless of time, I think most farm kids can relate to using your imagination to play on the farm.

The autobiography wraps up with her graduating from high school, getting a teaching degree and teaching at a local country school. By now it was the 1930s and the Great Depression was taking hold and times were even tougher.

Much like my grandma who taught at the same country school right before her, Gladys didn't teach very long. Women had to be single to be a country school teacher at the time and both of them had to quit once they married.

Their parents both passed away in the 1940s and the Grimm farm was sold to another farmer. Like my other great-grandparent's farm in the same area, it is now home to a housing development.

Time marched on for both, and being a farmwife, having children and then later grandchildren filled their lives. Both sisters passed away within a couple years of each other, now more than 30 years ago.

The thing that stuck with me most after reading this story from nearly 100 years ago is while it was significantly different then with no modern advancements we have now, there are some aspects that have not changed over time.

Three generations later, I watch my three children play in the grove of trees north of our farm place. Watching them play and having memories of my own childhood playing on the farm, I can almost picture what it was like for my grandma and her siblings growing up on the farm nearly a century earlier.

Russ Quinn can be reached at russ.quinn@dtn.com

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Russ Quinn