"Those Old-Fashioned Saturday Nights", an article by Odebolt native Howard Johnson, appeared in the Fall 2003 issue of the Iowa Barn Foundation Magazine. Another article, "The Dirty Thirties", appeared in the Fall 2004 issue of the magazine. We thank Howard P. Johnson and Jacqueline Andre Schmeal, President of the Iowa Barn Foundation, for granting permission to use these stories on the Odebolt History Pages. Howard P. Johnson graduated from Odebolt High School in 1940.
Those Old-Fashioned Saturday Nights
By Howard P. Johnson
Howard Johnson, retired head of agricultural engineering at Iowa State University, wrote this nostalgic piece about Saturday nights in a small town for us [The Iowa Barn Foundation Magazine].
Summer Saturday nights provided the social event of the week for farm kids in the thirties. First of all, there were chores-throwing down hay from the mow, feeding oats to the horses and cows, and milking. After dinner and bath in a small round wash tub, I put on my clean pair of bib overalls, Mother placed the last picking of eggs in the egg case, and Dad poured the fresh sweet cream into the can on top of the thick gray mass of sour cream. We found our places in the 1929 Olds and steered toward town over the dusty dirt road. By eight o'clock we arrived at the co-op and left the egg case and cream can. The eggs were candled and the cream tested for butterfat. By nine o'clock Dad could pick up the payment and spend it at Nate's grocery across the street, a sort of barter system.
If you arrived by eight, you could park along Main Street and watch the country folk walk by. My mother's favorite pastime was observing from the Olds' back seat. Part of the rites of passage was to be released to run Main Street at the age of eight. Usually we found a school or church friend and explored Watt's drug store and soda fountain, buying a green river or a frozen Milky Way candy bar. By age 10 we purchased a 10-cent ticket and found a back seat in the Princess Theater to see a Gene Autry or Roy Rogers spectacular.
At the location of Per Brentesson's Clothing Store, which burned and left a gaping black hole on the west side of Main Street, was a boarded wall and bench occupied on Saturday night by the elder gentry and retired farmers. The Odebolt Chronicle dubbed the gathering the "thirty old men on the bench" and provided more editorial comment on discussions than deserved. However, that part of Main Street was the scourge of the modest women in the community who crossed the street to avoid glances and comments. A few women, especially one bold and confident woman of Scandinavian descent, smiled at the old male redoubt and didn't give a damn about their comments and activities. Often she would walk over to a farmer she knew and embarrass him by asking whether his corn was knee high yet.
When cold fall weather arrived, the thirty old men moved to Bugs Ellis' pool hall to play cards. While Mother looked the other way, when in high school, I occasionally played snooker with friends at Bugs' place. If you bent over a little, you could see the pool table under the smoke and avoid the brass cuspidors scattered around in strategic locations. At first I felt guilty but in time playing pool was a routine part of being with friends. Walking into Bugs' pool hall was a part of growing up, a mark of bravery or possibly defiance.
In summer the high school band played on Wednesday nights. The bandstand, a flatbed trailer, was towed into the fenced W.W.I memorial park in front of Adams Bank. The audience sat in autos parked in a circle, two deep, and cheered and honked horns, and expressions of appreciation for the band's efforts.
Dad bought groceries from a prepared list after collecting the egg and cream money. In those days he stood at a counter and told the clerk what he wanted. After writing the items down on a ruled pad with name and date, the clerk walked around the store and sacked the groceries.
About 10:00 or 10:30 groceries, egg crate, cream cans, and kids were back in the Olds. Exhausted, we slept in a soft corner on the way home. The evening in town was fun, and it was not unusual to spend a quarter on Saturday night.
"The Dirty Thirties", an article by Odebolt native Howard Johnson, appeared in the Fall 2004 issue of the Iowa Barn Foundation Magazine. Another article, "Those Old-Fashioned Saturday Nights", appeared in the Fall 2003 issue of the magazine. We thank Howard P. Johnson and Jacqueline Andre Schmeal, President of the Iowa Barn Foundation, for granting permission to use these stories on the Odebolt History Pages. Howard P. Johnson graduated from Odebolt High School in 1940.
The Dirty Thirties
By Howard P. Johnson
During 1959 Iowa State’s football team was known as the Dirty Thirty. While they didn’t win the conference title they had a respectable year. The name, Dirty Thirty, renews memories of the years, 1930 to 1940, the dirty thirties. They were years of hard physical labor, stress and even anguish.
My father was a tenant farmer, having worked 14 years as a hired hand after arriving from Sweden. He began farming with his brother in 1918. My parents married in 1920 after his brother’s death. While the farm economy sagged in 1923 and 1927, they had a family of five children and a new Oldsmobile by 1930.
In 1929 the stock market collapsed; by 1932 many small banks failed, returning about one dollar in three. My father had little in Odebolt Savings Bank to lose. Our loyal hired man, who had worked for years for $50 a month and room and board, had about $1300 left of $3200 he had saved for retirement. Many farmers “lost the farm.”
Extremes of weather visited western Iowa from 1930 to 1936. During two of those years hail storms in late summer damaged or destroyed the corn crop. The countryside reeked with stench of corn silage after the hail storm with strong winds. High temperatures accompanied dry years. In July 1934 a temperature of 118° F. was recorded. The winter of 1935-36 is noted for continuous days of below zero temperatures and heavy snowfall.
The severe drought year of 1934 is famous for dust storms. Drifts of sediment collected along fencerows and sifted onto windowsills. Grasshoppers and chinch bugs chewed on scant greenery. Our farm well was dry that summer. My father hauled water in a livestock tank from a neighbor’s well two miles away. He finally sold the herd of Angus cattle as market beef because of lack of reliable water supply. We moved to another rented farm in March 1935 where the water supply was reliable. Father planted rye in the dust that fall to have pasture for remaining livestock in the spring.
The farm economy was disastrous most of the 1930’s. Three-dollar hogs and ten-cent corn marked farmers’ memories. We burned moldy corn after an early fall freeze rather than buy coal. A market hog (180 pounds) brought five dollars. The government sealed corn at 25¢ per bushel to bail out crop farmers. Banks sold good land in central Iowa for $60 to $70 per acre after foreclosure.
Sleeping sickness of horses plagued western Iowa in 1936. Four of seven of our work horses died that summer including my riding horse, Cap. We thought he would survive; he died in his stall one night. The loss forced Dad to buy a row-crop tractor, a John Deere B with steel lugs. Horses were being replaced.
We lived with minimum provisions and cash. Our life style was sparse with outdoor hydrants and toilets. The REA delivered electricity in 1938. I trapped during winter from about 1932 to 1938. A good skunk pelt was worth $2.50, a rare mink $10. Muskrat pelts, worth about a dollar, were easy to stretch and the odor less persistent. I drove a tractor ten hours a day in 1939 for a dollar a day plus room and board. I received three dollars a day during threshing season hauling bundles from the field and pitching them into the threshing machine.
I rode to high school with a neighbor in a disk-wheeled 1928 Chevrolet for 50¢ per week. There was some discussion about the cost of transportation plus books in 1936. A few farm boys didn’t go to high school. Missing high school would have destroyed my life. I wanted to go too partly because a neighbor boy I admired attended. My parents decided to support my interest. I took bookkeeping instead of physics; bookkeeping texts cost $1.22, the physics text, $4.00.
My father never recovered financially before WWII; we never had funds to purchase land, always a farmer’s ambition. The opportunity to increase income came after the war. However, he died in 1944 from the lingering effects of “yellow jaundice,” which he contacted years before as a hired hand. We rarely saw a doctor. The hospital was a place to go to die.
The family survived with few physical and emotional scars. We had learned to work, to study and cooperate with neighbors. The trying years taught us to be frugal and cautious. I don’t remember feeling poor. The farm offered gardens, potato patches, chickens, hogs and beef to butcher and a place to live. Cash flow was minimal, mostly related to eggs and cream sold to the local co-op. We attended church most Sundays; our faith helped us face tomorrow. In many respects life was good to us through the dirty thirties. The thirties trained a conservative generation.