PART FOUR - ORAL HISTORY

1. Introduction

The earliest form of continuing Germanic, Indian and African social order was passed from one generation to the next by their established oral traditions. Of necessity this process required the elders within a tribe or village to share their version of long-standing customs, practices and laws with the youth within their living group. This process has its advantages and disadvantages compared to written documentation since additions, and deletions, may be more liberally allowed. This process continued in Germany throughout the Middle Ages into the 1600 and 1700´s to maintain social structure. Eventually this oral tradition would be referred to as the Weistumer, or the village customals (law) which was gradually replaced by written law in the mid-second millennium in northwest Germany. Remaining today from this tradition are the oral histories within our families. While no legal status is attached to these renditions of the present, they do reflect family values, aspirations and experiences. To the extent that they may assist subsequent generations in establishing historical insights and in forming an improved or enhanced lifestyle compared to their ancestors, family ´Weistumers´ could be even more important than written laws and therefore should be continued.

The following oral history is intended only to capture some of the experiences of life that the children from the SCHAKES OF LA CHARETTE farm found interesting while living there from 1929 through the 1970´s. They may reveal little, fail to make a point or even be nothing more than a favorite memory. The oral history of the Schake family is limited by the fact that over the past several generations of Schakes few of the grandchildren knew their Schake grandparents because of the combination of unusually long generation intervals and early deaths. This oral history is about everyday rural people living the formative years of their life in Charette Township, Warren County, Missouri. Each "short story" is presented as recalled, with the date of occurrence and initials of the family member responsible, indicated as follows: DES=Dorothy Elaine Schake, HMS=Helen Marie Schake, VAS=Virginia Anne Schake, LMS=Lowell Martin Schake and ALL=Everyone. No specific chronology or other order is reflected. Perhaps subsequent generations will chose to do the same at an appropriate time.

2. Oral History, 1929-1970´s

[Ed. note: The Bank of Dutzow continues to operate today (spring 1997); its independent status has succumed to fiscal pressure, and it is now part of the First Bank corporation.]

ALL 1940´s Dickmann Store and 4 Cent Eggs Also during the Depression Mom and Dad would sell chicken eggs to Mr. Dickmann. If eggs sold for 12 cents per dozen Mr. Dickmann would purchase them for 10 cents to cover his handling cost. Fair enough, except when eggs sold for 4 cents per dozen, as they did during the Depression, he then got half of the potential value of the eggs! Dickmann didn´t even have an M.B.A. degree to devise this fair trade opportunity. Dad and Mom would both laugh and become upset when recalling this episode. Other Missouri farmers were not so lucky when their eggs sold for only 3 cents per dozen! (1).

ALL 1944 Jake the Mule During the 1940´s both tractors and horse and mule teams were used as a source of farm power. Dad had a team of each and previously bred, raised and trained horses and mules. These animals each had names and personalities, and contributed much to the daily activities of farm life. Jake was a castrated male mule being wintered in the bluff pasture. One spring day when the Fallen Timber stream was running freely Jack got stuck in ´quick sand´ in the stream bed near the big sand hill north of the bluff close to the Ridder farm. All efforts were employed to pull Jack out of the sand - hand digging, levers, tractors and block-and-tackle. Jake was stuck. The block-and-tackle was required just to remove his tail, but eventually he was released and brought upon the bank. Jake was severely stressed from exposure in the stream and the extensive pulling upon his body. Dad carried feed and water to Jake for several days, but he eventually died and was buried. After that we only had one team of horses, Rex and Dolly.

ALL 1936-46 Walking to School Walking to school was actually a two mile walk one way, but up hill both ways for all of us! DES and HMS graduated from Cedar Grove School while VAS and LMS attended only through the sixth and second grades, respectively. Dad would take us or pick us up perhaps six times per year in really severe weather but rest of the time we walked. We worried about the neighbors´ bulls attacking us, avoiding certain crops of the neighbors and other unlikely concerns. HMS seemed least worried and was typically in the lead. One day she stepped right over a big black snake as we laughed and retold that story many, many times. LMS was strongly associated with pulling up Bill Sprick´s turnips and Floyd Hulsey knew that Dennis Oberlag and LMS took down his ´no hunting´ sign. The four of us reenacted this walk on February 16, 1991, the day after Mom´s funeral. Actually a rather nostalgic undertaking. As usual, time had played tricks on us - things seemed different, yet the same.

ALL 1930-50´s Yunga, Yunga Do Vis Laga Grandmother Mary (Maria) Rocklage would telephone almost everyday just to "check" on the family. She also helped Mom in the home resulting in the need for her to discipline us, sometimes in German. Her favorite expression was what sounded like "Yunga, yunga do vis laga." We never recalled the proper translation but it didn´t need any by her tone of voice. Other nontranslatables in German were also uttered by Dad when things weren´t going well in addition to "Ka putz," which meant everything had gone to hell. We do not recall Mom participating in this form of expression except when she would lapse into an occasional ´Ouck Yea´. Mom and Dad would also speak German around Christmas time to keep secrets from us. All the more reason to become multilingual in today´s world!

ALL 1940-50´s Ervin Price Each summer Ervin Price and his family of about five kids from St Louis would arrive unannounced for an afternoon visit with us. He and Dad lived and worked together on the SCHAKES OF LA CHARETTE farm as kids and were the very best of friends. They would reminisce and laugh, and laugh, and laugh. We think their best remembrances were seining for fish in Charette Creek followed by a big fish fry. Since Ervin was black we do not think he went to school with Dad but they shared a wonderful friendship. One summer Ervin came with a new wife following a divorce. We think that was the last time he and Dad were together, probably about 1953.

DES 1940-50´s Local Excursions Traveling by bicycle to Marthasville to get groceries from Emmet Kock´s Meat Market was common during the summer for all of us. On some occasions we would walk to town to visit Grandmother Rocklage or school friends, and DES would walk once each summer to the Schulte house to visit Elizabeth Peters and into Charette bottoms to visit Marilyn Wessel. No one recalls ever going �out to dinner� at a restaurant as a dining experience unless it was associated with business or other travels, and vacations always involved family visits.

LMS 1955 Income Tax and Fiscal Concerns LMS was always wanted money to buy more Polled Herefords. He had many projects underway to earn income. He grew corn on the M-K-T Railroad right-of-way, grew 1,000 broiler chickens during the summer, trapped and hunted for pelts, had a few Polled Herefords plus other projects at various times. By his sophomore high school year he had earned enough to pay income tax, and has done so every year since. On the other extreme, he never bought a car until 1965 when he got on the Texas A&M University faculty. The Walkinshaws gave LMS and Wendy a beautiful two-tone blue 1955 Ford convertible for their 1959 wedding present which kept LMS from having to buy a car at that time. Some place during his youth he learned well that a car was not an investment, but rather an expense. The Polled Herefords, for which LMS paid Mom and Dad an annual boarding fee, helped with education cost and much more until most of them were sold to help with the down payment on their first new home in College Station, Texas in August of 1969. Apparently conservative fiscal ideals may be learned very early in life.

ALL 1927 Honeymoon Before Wedding Bells We think it rather unusual for ones parents to go on their honeymoon before their wedding, but that is what Martin and Flora did. They of course hastened to explain that Mr. and Mrs. Walter Ottermann accompanied them for a month of touring the western U. S. in Dad´s new Willys Knight Six (that´s the brand name of his car). They had many pictures of the Grand Canyon, Painted Desert, Petrified Forest and much more that we kids looked at many times as we asked unending questions and were told of the majestic beauties of the west. Why must one do things in a conventional manner anyway when it is always much more fun to break the mold ?

LMS 1961 Wendy Goes to the Farm Being the youngest in the family and the only boy, it was assumed by German tradition that LMS would continue farming at the SCHAKES OF LA CHARETTE. In fact, the entire family and community assumed that to be the case. During his senior year at the University of Missouri both Wendy and LMS had renovated the rent house on the old Schulte farm working on weekends and otherwise in preparation for their move to the farm. It was an exciting year for them but they were soon to discover that the farm income was not sufficient for two Schake families. To overcome this they attempted to purchase two more adjacent farms further up Charette Creek but neither deal materialized. During the course of that year LMS also had to face reality - Wendy was too liberal for Mom to form a workable family partnership. Actually Mom thought Wendy would be a good mother but told LMS that she could not accept her smoking and some other behaviors. Wendy and LMS talked it over and decided that returning to the University of Missouri for a Masters Degree was the perfect solution. Our lives would be benefited and the folks could only agree with that entirely socially acceptable decision. Certainly that proved to be a wise choice for everyone but we have often contemplated our fate had the Schoppenhorst family sold us either of those farms.

ALL 1940-50´s Range Raised Poultry About 750 turkeys and 500 pullets were maintained under range conditions during the summer and early fall months to provide them some food and reduced exposure to disease. Each evening just before sunset we would need to be certain all were in their range shelters to protect them from predators. On one occasion Dad thought that a weasel had killed some of the turkeys so he chose to sleep-out with the turkeys the next night with his shotgun. Sure enough something was after the turkeys … Dad took aim and fired … only to learn at dawn that he had killed a few stray turkeys! Routinely in early August swarms of grasshoppers would appear and eat our crops. The turkeys would readily devour them, even roaming onto the farms of all the neighbors requiring that we drive them home.

LMS 1959-97 Thanks Wendy Wendy Anne Walkinshaw and LMS met, fell in love and married within a six month interval. Eighteen moves, three degrees, two children, three universities, lots of love and 36 years later - thanks partner! We lived on the SCHAKES OF LA CHARETTE farm one full year before returning to the University of Missouri in 1962 to start graduate studies. By the way we´re moving-auswandering-to the Texas coast to retire at Padre Isles, Corpus Christi, Texas in November of 1995. Thanks too for your exceptional interest and the many contributions to this study of we Schakes. It has been great fun together!

HMS 1940-50´s Dogs Substitute for Door Bell A door bell was not necessary as we would always be forewarned by the barking of our dogs when salesmen, visitors or relatives would come up our driveway. It was routine for Uncle Fred and Aunt Hulda, Uncle Raymond and Aunt Amanda and Aunt Hedwig and Uncle Edwin Schake to call ahead and visit for several days at a time with family members. They too seemed to be attracted to this home of their youth. Uncle Raymond would always have his little white box with barbering equipment to cut the hair of his friends and relatives. He was a superb story teller and would love to tell us about his honey bees, especially about parthenogenesis. Much of the family oral tradition was exercised during these visits.

ALL 1930-60´s Thou Shall Not It would be inappropriate to describe our parents as strict, yet they made their ideals known in the usual parental manner. There were some very clearly understood facts of behavioral expectation. We were to understand that the use of tobacco, alcohol or any other ´unnatural´ behavior was unacceptable. The influence of the German Reformation was still very much in evidence after 400 years as we were strictly advised not to marry outside of the Evangelical or Methodist faiths. Above all else, honesty was the policy and one was to use their talents to advance society as well as one´s self. You should always leave a place or situation better than the condition in which you found it and that life indeed did have purpose, even divine expectations. The Golden Rule and the Ten Commandments were the philosophical cornerstones of our moral instruction.

LMS 1995 In-a-hurry I don´t know why, but it seems retrospectively that I have always been in a hurry to accomplish more. I am not sure more than what, just more, better or whatever. On the farm I always wanted to hurry-up with the cropping to have more time with the cattle. We always wanted to have a bigger and better herd of cattle. In high school I enrolled in one to two more classes per semester than others. At the University of Missouri I enrolled in 20 hours or more most semesters to graduate in seven rather than eight regular semesters, and I feel like I took too little time to visit in the hallways to catch-up on gossip with faculty and students at the Universities. In-a-hurry. Something drives me but I don´t know what, or why. Having come to acknowledge this trait in more recent years I have compensated some.....I think. Perhaps retirement will tell.

ALL 1940-60´s Military Service Dad had some military training at the Central Wesleyan Academy in Warrenton, and being born in 1898 made him prime draft material for World War I. Sometime in the fall of 1918 Walter Otterman and Dad were soon to report to the draft board in Warrenton for processing into the army. In only a few weeks the war was over and they were told not to report ! Dad always was grateful for that stroke of good fortune. To our knowledge Franklin Schake was the only Schake to serve in the military here or in Lippe except for the two weeks that LMS participated in ROTC at the University of Missouri before being rejected due to his 4-F status for anyone who had had major surgery. Likewise, Franklin was discharged from the Navy because he became allergic to the wool clothing! More strokes of good luck.

HMS 1940-60´s Culinary Pursuits Picking blackberries in the midst of sweltering August heat resulted in the best of cobblers, pies and homemade jelly, to say nothing of the stink bugs, chigger and mosquito bites associated with this aspect of living off the land. Uncle John and Aunt Gussie Schake would always come in the fall to cook and can apple butter. A big kettle was used to cook the apples by building a wood fire in the back yard. This was a full day event which was discontinued by the early 1950´s.

LMS 1952 50:50 Chance In many ways LMS could be considered to be reckless, perhaps a reflection of my being very lucky with life. During the summer prior to his freshman year in high school he was found to have extreme hypertension. By fall the diagnosis indicated coarctation of the aortic arch which was correctable by heart surgery. HMS was a student nurse intern at Barnes Hospital at the time where the surgery could be performed. LMS was allowed to make the decision whether or not to proceed with a 50:50 chance of surviving surgery. The alternative, as indicated by medical histories, was that none of the twenty or so other known individuals who had this congenital disorder lived past their late 20´s. Upon recovering from surgery on October 13, 1952 he pledged to himself to accomplish as much with life as possible. Perhaps that is the origin of his being in-a-hurry. Whatever, except for an 18 inch scar with about 90 stitches and a slight thickening of the aorta due to scar tissue at the incision, he beat the odds in more than one way. Everyone was really helpful to LMS at this time in his life. Dr. Raymond Massey was the attending physician and Dr. Charles Burford was the surgeon, one of only five or six in the world with the skill to accomplish that operation. The operation cost Mom and Dad $2,000. LMS thanks everyone once again for their help. Even his Washington High School teachers helped him with five weeks of make-up work to maintain Honor Roll status.

ALL 1940-60´s Oranges in Marthasville Mom often told of her first orange. Sometime when she was a schoolgirl in Marthasville she remembered one of the Ahmann Aunts bringing oranges for the children at Christmas. Each child was given one section of the orange, much to their delight. This likely occurred about 1910. Oranges were still popular into the 1950´s as they and peanuts were given to school kids in brown paper sacks at Christmas plays and parties at church and school.

LMS 1944 Cedar Grove SchoolOn the last day of school for DES, HMS and VAS at Cedar Grove, LMS was to attend in preparation for first grade in the fall. Miss Lois Schoppenhorst, our cousin, was the teacher of the 10 regular students and she apparently had a rather limited sense of humor, at least that´s what LMS was to learn. How was he to know that students didn´t get up and have a donut during class? She admonished him for that as he sat down giggling with an embarrassing mouthful of donut. Not the best of starts for a career in academia. That´s just the beginning. By the second grade everything was out of control. All the boys smoked cigarettes and grape vines, skipped class, set traps for the teacher (Miss Audrey Ahmann) in the four hole privy, built fires in the woods, skinny dipped for clams in Charette Creek - you name it. The boys were in charge and learned nothing. We only completed five weekly spelling lessons all year. So much for local control of schools. This one room school house had the old fashioned desks with ink wells and a wood burning stove for heat and occasionally used to cook hot lunches. The teachers had to maintain the fire, clean the school, teach plus numerous other expectations. Mrs. Ethyl Hulsey taught LMS first grade where he studied DICK and JANE at his wood and wrought iron desk.

ALL 1940-60´s Reading Materials Reading was encouraged whenever time permitted. Weekly newspaper subscriptions included The Marthasville Record, The Warrenton Banner and The Washington Missourian. The St Louis Globe Democrat was purchased at the Koch Meat Market every Sunday morning after church, later delivered on a daily basis with mail. Periodicals included The Readers Digest, The Christian Herald, Time, Look, The American Hereford Journal, The Polled Hereford World, The Turkey World, Progressive Farmer and lesser publications, catalogues and mailers. When Cedar Grove School closed in 1945, Dad purchased the complete set of Encyclopedia Britannica and a huge leather bound dictionary at the school sale. Mom continued to read those encyclopedia the rest of her life. Books in the home included the Bible and old class text books remaining from course work of family members. Warrenton and Washington were the closest public libraries but seldom, if ever, were they used.

HMS 1940- 50´s Animal Friends Mom and Dad found some baby ducks which they attempted to raise in the back yard with the help of a sunken galvanized wash tub filled with water. HMS remembers being scolded for playing with them too much. HMS and VAS would play house with kittens which would arrive each spring from the barn cat population. They would dress the kittens in doll clothes and push them about in a doll buggy while they slept on their backs. White kittens were preferred for this care-nurturing activity. LMS would trap for fur bearing animals and once caught a skunk which he attempted to release from the trap. He ´very causually´ enters the house to determine if anyone could notice an odor……They did, and he got sent straight to the shower.

LMS 1946 Subtleties of Spelling The third grade was not too bad for LMS in spite of the lack of any progress in the second grade, except for spelling. One Thursday evening he was working on that week´s spelling assignment of about 15 new words and they were really hard for him. He would practice spelling them, write them down and eventually have them called out in the kitchen and attempt to write them on the chalk board on the wall. "Shirt." He scribbled s-h-i-t on the chalk board. In the background one could hear muffled laughter - all the girls and Mom. All I wanted to do was cry because I did not know what I had written that was so funny. Well I finally used my best phonetic techniques and worked it out. We all got a kick out of that many times over. To this day I am not an accomplished speller, probably in part due to poor second grade training but more likely the result of impaired hearing. Regardless, thank heavens for spell-check on our computers of today.

LMS 1968 Grandchildren Sheryl A. Schake, L. Scott Schake and cousin Julie Hoertel rode on a farm trailer pulled by a tractor up to the top of Schakes´ Bluff with Grandmother Schake for an October picnic. Sheryl remembers Granddad driving the tractor, that she and Julie laughed so much that Julie got sick and that strawberries were served as they enjoyed the view over the bottoms to the bluffs on the other side of the Missouri River. She also recalls that they attended the Washington County Fair where livestock and crafts were on exhibit, that Scott became sick because Grandmother made him finish his meal and the kids thought that the Schake farm house was haunted, especially the room where the stern picture of Sophie Ritter Schake was displayed. L. Scott recalls riding Rex and finding Granddad Schake coming out of the hill field north of the Schulte rent house on the Allis-Chalmers WC tractor after mowing the alfalfa, picking field corn to serve at dinner, sledding down the snow covered hills at Christmas and hunting at night with LMS and cousins Glenn and Mike Meyer for coons.

DES & HMS 1930´s Missouri River Ferry Boat Before the bridge was constructed across the Missouri River in about 1935 to connect Warren and Franklin counties, ferry boats were used. Four generations of Schakes would have used this means of getting to Washington and beyond as DES and HMS both remember crossing on a ferry boat just as the Martin, Adolph, Fritz and Kurt Schake families had before them. Since Adolph and Fritz had part of their pork processing plant in Washington they would have frequenty ferried across the Missouri River just as Karl Heinrich Rocklage did to attend school in Washington.

LMS 1945 The Girlie Coat VAS had a very nice green coat which she outgrew. Since that was her only coat she wore it to school on cold days and all the other kids knew that green coat as hers. Mother decided that it was just too good and warm to be thrown away so she swapped the buttons from the girls´ side of the coat to the boys´ side so that LMS would have a new (and cheap) coat. Well did that idea ever backfire! Every kid in school spotted the old coat with the tell-tale spots where the buttons had been and proceeded to razz LMS..."girlie coat, girlie coat, sissy, sissy, sissy, sissy ... I think I wore it for only one year by promptly out growing it.

ALL 1940-50´s Pigs in the Kitchen Dad would always try to farrow the sows as early as possible to later have market hogs for sale at better prices when fewer hogs went to market. This was all good and well but it meant that the sows would farrow their pigs in about February. Dad could be seen coming to the house early on cold mornings with a sack full of cold and stiff pigs born during the night. We would place them near the kitchen stove to warm as we rubbed and played with them. About 80% survived although many never had a chance to get to the wood and coal burning stove in time. Perhaps the old German custom of housing the livestock and humans in the same building wasn´t such a bad husbandry practice after all!

LMS 1948 Culture Shock M. P. Moore, owner of the prominent Circle M Ranch, was holding a Polled Hereford sale in Senatobia, Mississippi in February. Mom and Dad saved up enough money and planned to buy some cattle there. They hired a cattle truck from Fridel Paul of Holstein with a driver to make the trip in one day. We left at about 2:30 a.m. with Mom, Dad and the driver sitting on the seat while LMS sat on a little red chair between Dad´s legs. They purchased two bred heifers and got home by mid-night. The culture shock was the homes, living conditions and maltreatment of the blacks that lived in shanties in the share cropping mentality of Mississippi. M. P. Moore was a leader in the cattle ranks but he had the audacity to openly brag about how to "keep niggers in their rightful place." I have never forgotten that trip nor those poor black people.

ALL 1946 Doctors Orders Bernie Peters lived in the Old Schulte Home with his family and was friends with Leroy Feldmann, our hired man at that time. We were all returning home from shopping in Washington one April afternoon when Dad noticed that plowing in the field below the mail box had not progressed as he had expected. He stops the car, gets out and discovered that Bernie was lying about half way up the field in the furrow, the tractor had stalled and Leroy was on the ground between the tractor and the plow. They were drunk (passed-out) and Dad was mad! Later Dad brought them into the granary to sober-up but we kids were allowed to see them there unconscious. This was to be our lesson as to the evils of booze. Later Bernie explained that he had teeth pulled and the doctor told him to drink to kill the pain.

LMS 1940´s First Remembrances I have often wondered when my first recalls in life occurred. Some early ones include Dad feeding the hogs as I watched from across the fence by the old log barn, visiting Grandmother Rocklage, Dad arriving home late from selling hybrid seed corn and then checking on the livestock with a lantern, Christmas programs with Santa Claus at Cedar Grove School, Sears & Roebuck catalogs in the two seater outdoor privy, visiting with the Walter Ottermans, Uncle Raymond Roloff cutting my hair in the back yard and telling me about his honey bees, floods and Rex - the horse that Dad broke for draft work and to ride.

HMS 1930-40´s Monday Was Wash Day Once each week clothes was washed. In the winter Mom would use heated water from the kitchen stove´s copper boiler by carrying it to the east porch where the washing machine was and proceed to wash with homemade soap. After washing and rinsing, the clothes were hung upstairs in the hallway or in the west room. With nicer winter weather the clothes were hung outside on the clothes line, just like in the summer. Those sheets sure smelled great! When the kitchen stove was not fired up to heat the house, an old black kettle was used to heat water by building a wood fire southeast of the wash house. In either case the water was hand carried from the cistern and then the drama surrounding the starting of the gasoline engine to power the washing machine would reach epic proportions. Mom much preferred if Dad could start the engine as it was as fickle as all get-out. Later an electric motor was mounted in its place and wash day was accomplished in the newly completed basement. Mom accomplished this routine each Monday, any wonder Mondays were considered as ´blue´. Ed Hoertel once asked his mother (HMS) if his Grandmother Schake ever jogged. HMS replied, "No, Ed... She washed." A similar exercise was undertaken each spring with the lace curtains. They were washed on a day other than Monday and heavily starched before placed on wooden frame stretchers to dry. This was completed by the concrete cistern platform south of the house. By the time we children attended college this Monday wash routine was modified somewhat. Toward the end of each week we would mail our dirty laundry home, Mom would wash and iron it, and return it by mail to DES at Central College in Fayette, HMS at Barnes Hospital in St Louis and to VAS and LMS at the University of Missouri in Columbia. This was another cost effective technique which adequately accomplished our needs. Today HMS has the old kettle.

ALL 1930-70´s Those Refreshing Naps We children took afternoon naps until about the time of first grade. Mom and Dad never outgrew the routine. After dinner (supper was the evening meal) Dad would lie on the living rug and sleep for a little over 10 minutes, Mom would retire to the bedroom for a bit longer nap after the dishes were washed. Starting their work day at 6 A.M. and continuing until sunset or later required considerable physical exertion making these naps welcomed daily events. They continued this routine throughout their lives. After Mom moved to the Homelife Retirement complex in Rolla in 1980 she started morning naps as well, and for longer intervals.

ALL 1940-70´s Family Doctor Dr. Herbert H. Schmidt, M. D. was one of the few trained professionals living in the community. He was exceptional as a physician and a community leader. He knew more about most people than was necessary, yet his advice and counsel on all matters was sought by a wide range of individuals. His professional commitment was an inspiration as he would take care of anyone at any time of the day or night. We remember him making house calls to the SCHAKES OF LA CHARETTE home with his little black bag in-hand, working until 2:00 A. M. or later with patients in his Marthasville office and being ready for surgery in Washington early the next morning, and always sharing a good time with everyone. LMS was lucky to have had him correctly diagnose the congenital coarctation and we ALL remember him giving us great care and advice.

LMS 1950-60´s Near Misses Farming is a risky business in many different ways. I probably fell off of Rex or we both fell together a dozen or more times without incident. Tractors were more life threatening to me. Once while disking my rented railroad right-of-way land for planting corn the John Deere model ´B´ tractor hit a railroad tie hidden in the weeds, threw me off between the tractor and the disk, I grabbed the seat, got back upon the tractor and gained control of it all within an instant while the tractor proceeded at full throttle in fifth gear. Another time while plowing the steepest portion of the south hillside just above the Osage Indian Farmer-Village campsite I attempted to raise the plow from the ground but instead the front end of the tractor was lifted by its hydraulic system. Yet other incidents include being hit with a flying log chain in the back of the neck when the chain broke as I pulled a portable cattle feeder, turning over the tractor with the front-end loader and jumping free, having the John Deere bailer push the tractor down hills (out of control) including the hill on the county road at Uncle John´s, having to put-out a fire of gas fumes when the gas tank of the tractor mounted with the corn picker overheated, having my middle finger crushed in the husking bed of this same corn picker (my fault) and many, many more near misses including some with cattle and other activities.

ALL The Usual Foods 1920 - 70´s Home canning of fruits, vegetables, sauerkraut, pickles, meats, jams and jellies was routine through World War II years. A root cellar in the basement of the house was used to store home grown potatoes and other perishables. Meats were smoked and salted while eggs, milk and butter were consumed fresh. Many custards, pies and other bakery items were prepared and consumed in the home. Typically the breakfast menu would include either fried or scrambled eggs, toast, cereal, juice plus sausage, bacon or ham and milk or coffee. Hot oatmeal was commonly served for winter breakfasts. Meat, potatoes, gravy, bread, salad, a vegetable and a dessert were common foods for lunch and dinner. Following World War II sugar was again relatively inexpensive and consumed more liberally. By the 1950´s meals represented many fewer home grown and prepared items, although some neighbors continued to bake bread. Later, less sugar and fat was represented in most meals but large servings of meat and a dessert were still a part of the routine.

LMS 1940-60´s Favorites The smell of fresh cut hay, hot sugar coated donuts cooked in lard, VAS´ cinnamon rolls with white sugar icing, the day Coke came to school to give kids free Cokes and a new ruler plus spelling Coca-Cola in the sky with a small plane, rain falling on a tin roof, listening from the fields to the girls playing their musical instruments, sitting on the wood box by the kitchen stove, the distant gobble of turkeys, first sightings of a newborn Polled Hereford calf, corn swaying in the fields, puppies twitching as they slept ....and their smell, hunting Osage Indian arrowheads, and day-dreaming.

LMS 1950-80´s Favorite Teachers Maude Fields was a smart old hard nut of an eighth grade teacher who really challenged me as did Herbert Joerling in high school science, chemistry and physics, Miss Zimmer in boys´ home economics and Earl Webb in high school Vocational Agriculture. Later both Dr. Webb and LMS would serve together as faculty members at Texas A&M University during the 1960´s and 1970´s. Professor John Kamm Riggs was my Ph. D. advisor at Texas A&M, my mentor and friend beyond comparison. Great teachers can do so much in very subtle ways. The sad part is that there is so little one can do to pay them back except to continue the tradition in their honor.

ALL 1940-60´s Gold Medal Jelly Rolls One of the favorite family sweets was Mom´s jelly roll. The recipe was copied by DES from Mom´s notes as follows: 3 eggs, 1 cup sugar, 5 tbsp. Water, 1 cup flour, 1 tsp. Baking powder, 1 tsp. Flavoring, ¼ tsp. Salt and ½ cup jelly or jam. Beat the eggs until very light. Add sugar, beating all the while with a rotary egg beater. Add water and beat well. Sift flour once before measuring. Sift flour, baking powder and salt together, and add to the egg mixture. Beat quickly until mixed. Add flavoring and pour immediately into shallow pan which has been greased and lined with wax paper, and bake 15 min. In 375 degree f. Moderately hot oven. When baked turn upside down on a cloth sprinkled with confectioner´s sugar, remove paper, and cut edges off cake so it will not split when rolled. Spread with jelly or other filling and roll carefully and quickly, wrapping in towel until cool. This dessert was often prepared and served as part of the afternoon lunch or as the last course to a special meal.

ALL 1950-70´s Seining in the Charette Creek Dad loved to recall the fun times he, Ed Roloff, Ervin Price, and other friends would have seining for baskets full of fish in the Charette Creek after which a big fish fry was held. They would set the seine, make noise with sticks from a boat to drive the fish into the net while others from shore would retrieve the seine. Ed Roloff told us at the time of Mom´s funeral that the seine was 100 feet long. Today one needs a special permit to seine, and then only for certain fish.

ALL 1930-50´s Rural Realities Certainly we enjoyed the opportunity to grow up in Charette Township but too often one forgets some of the undesirable aspects of life. For example, without mentioning any names we can recall school classmates who ate paste directly from the jar with their fingers, drank catsup directly from bottles as if it were soda, farmers hanging themselves as a result of the stress of floods destroying their crops or other factors destroying their lives and families, a youthful mother dying from a vitamin A deficiency, the presence of visible goiters, farmers with missing limbs, a friend being severely kicked in the head by a horse, a male teacher molesting boys in Marthasville Schools, cases of incest and other atrocities of life. Before hot and cold running water and electricity at the SCHAKES OF LA CHARETTE farm, we only got baths on Saturday nights behind the living room stove in a big tub - the girls went two at-a-time. Another reality was the slop bucket under the kitchen sink to store table scraps which was emptied every 2 or 3 days when fed to the hogs. Life was different than now but our innocence was shrouded by not knowing that life could, or would ever change.

LMS 1949 Lay Vet CMR Queen Domino 17 was purchased from Circle M Ranch in 1948 as a heifer bred to CMR Larry Domino. Later she gave birth to a bull which Dad wanted to breed. The bull had great difficulty attempting to mate cows. To resolve the problem Dad called a lay vet (one with no formal training but licensed by way of acknowledged experience) to administer to the bull. They hog-tied the bull and examined his penis to discover a growth. The lay vet tied a string around the growth and pulled. He removed the growth from the penis along with essential muscle tissue. After the bull healed he was never successful in mating as the penis would always deflect in the wrong direction. I do not recall the name of this vet but he was from the Warrenton area. Thereafter Dad only employed real DVM´s.

LMS 1960´s Showing Cattle Each newborn calf was immediately inspected to assess its potential as a show prospect since those animals were generally considered to be more valuable than others. I would feed, train, trim feet, wash, groom and exhibit these cattle at Missouri and Illinois State Fairs, a few county fairs and numerous associations show and sales each year. We were very successful with this and with one exception had either one or more championships and/or the high selling animal at every show and sale every year. Count Domino Advance was the second bull calf produced by CMR Queen Domino 17 and the first bull I exhibited at the Missouri State Fair in 1950. I rode in the back of the truck with the bull from Marthasville to Sedalia, something that probably confused a lot of motorists on the highway. Eventually our herd earned the reputation as the winningest herd in the mid-west.

ALL 1940-60´s Party Line Our hand crank telephone was part of a six party line. Each home had a separate ring to which you were expected to respond. Ours was three long rings and one short ring. Of course everyone on the party line could hear the phone ring and in order for the neighbors to keep up on the community happenings they would listen to the conversations of other party line members. In a matter of a few moments one could hardly hear the calling party, as the more phones operating on the line the poorer was the transmission. Yet the party line had other attributes. In the case of an emergency there was another designated ring to which everyone was expected to respond. During 1961 Wendy was momentarily surprised when a neighbor lady offers the comment to her...... "Your folks sure come in nice an´ clear on the phone all the way from Michigan."

ALL 1930-60 Fresh Milk At one time or another we all milked one or two of the cows which provided milk for our household needs. Sanitation was assured as we always washed the heaviest dirt from the cows udder and our hands before drying both with a ´clean´ feed sack and proceeded to milk the cow into an open-top bucket. The tail of the cow was sometimes held fast to prevent too much stuff getting into the milk but that was really difficult during fly season when flies were disturbing the cows, let alone those barnyard flies jumping directly into the milk in the bucket. If that happened we always removed them as quickly as we possible. The cows were vaccinated for bangs (undulant fever) but no pasteurization was provided. The milk was strained to remove the bigger chunks of stuff, allowed to cool in the cellar after which the cream was removed before serving the resulting milk. The cream was processed into butter by cranking a handle on the churn with the butter formed into one pound molds. Extra cream and butter was sold along with eggs to Dickmann Store. There is certain truth to some of our all-natural food friends in society today discovering a different taste in foods now as compared to the good old days.

ALL 1930-50´s Assorted Moments DES, HMS and VAS each recall the cooking of apple butter in the big black kettle in the back yard. DES and HMS both held strong biomechanical inclinations at a very early age as they are credited as being among the first in the world to oil the squeaky wheel on their tricycle with the preening gland (oil can) fluid of a chicken which Mom had just butchered! All three recall warming their feet on hot bricks while riding in a car during the winter and we all recall saving our dental work for rainy days. Pat Murphy was our favorite Hobo who traveled the M-K-T Railroad. He would drop in for food and other handouts in exchange for little bits of work. He and others like him lived in the caves along the SCHAKES OF LA CHARETTE bluffs. We all recall many horse activities - riding Rex, cultivating and dragging corn, cutting and raking hay, driving a team hitched to a wagon and other tasks. DES was the most loving toward animals, once attempting to raise a family of baby skunks by feeding them milk with an eye dropper with the same apparent success her father had with a similar project in his youth with foxes. In both cases the animals either escaped or died.

ALL 1950-70´s Processing Meats The Schake family has long standing expertise in meat processing. A story told by our Dad from Lippe described how the family would carve a special mark on the surface of cured meats after the last portion was removed to document if meat was being stolen. This form of meat inventory verification was essential as Kurt Schake told of being allotted only one small morsel of meat per week when he lived in Lippe. Butchering of hogs and curing of pork was a major enterprise for Fritz and Adolph Schake in Missouri up until the time they dissolved that partnership due to the use of a new but unproven liquid ham injection curing technique, which resulted in spoiled hams. Fritz then insisted that Adolph should pay-off the largest portion of this $20,000 debt since he had the largest farm of the two! Later we all recall butchering hogs and cattle on the farm with evisceration and other processing completed as the carcass was hoisted from a tree. Chickens were slaughtered by Dad chopping off the head with an ax. Later Mom would remove the feathers after scalding them in hot water, eviscerate, singe the carcass to remove small feathers and hair and then render the bird into edible parts. This was all necessarily completed before we could enjoy a spring chicken or two for Sunday dinner. Ed Simons owns the VB Meat Company in Washington and both LMS and L. Scott Schake have conducted and published results of beef cattle research involving meats data. LMS administered meat science and muscle biology programs both at the University of Connecticut and at Texas Tech University. Thus we document at least five generations of Schake family members involved in the processing of meats; probably many more had processed their own meat in Lippe.

LMS 1940-50´s Dad Shaving Every boy carries a certain wonderment about when he will have the first opportunity to shave like his Dad. My opportunity came early enough but previously I remember watching Dad soak a wash cloth with hot water and then apply it to his face before lathering the brush in a mug and applying the lather to his face. "Why the hot cloth, Dad?", was my query. Dad explained that it made the whiskers softer resulting in a smoother and more comfortable shave. I still prefer this method of shaving to the electrical alternatives. Always have, always will. Dad shaved once or twice a week as a routine unless there was some other event requiring additional grooming.

LMS 1950-60´s Volunteering Help Volunteer work with church, community and for social activities was a common family tradition. Less common was volunteerism in the business world. In order to learn more about the Polled Hereford business LMS would volunteer to help others with their cattle sales and at the shows. He spent several days at Awyon Farms, Halbert and Fawcett and at the Hill and Frazer sales and at various state and national shows for that purpose. Later many of these experiences led to job offers and other useful contacts. Polled Herefords were a major portion of our lives and were especially helpful to LMS in the early years of his career as an animal scientist.

ALL 1930-60´s Celebrations & Entertainment Birthdays, anniversaries and holidays were observed by setting aside special time for each occasion. Birthdays included a large meal with family and perhaps a friend, the usual birthday cake, a card and a gift or two. Christmas, Thanksgiving, Easter and other church holidays required that the family get dressed in our best and attend a church service followed with a special feast often shared with relatives. Farm raised and processed turkey, beef or pork were the meats of choice, although chicken was frequently served for special events. The Fourth of July included a church picnic, occasionally a special performance such as a school or community civic play was attended in the Old Marthasville Theater, the annual Marthasville Fall Festival which consisted of a third rate carnival show plus various household exhibits held in downtown Marthasville in August and several times each year the family would attend the movies in Warrenton or Washington. The Sullivan Boys and a few Walt Disney specials such as Ole Yellar were enjoyed as much as the news updates preceding them. We faithfully attended church each Sunday and participated in Sunday School, church choir, youth groups, church pageants and plays and confirmation exercises.

ALL 1930- 60´s Big Gardens A tradition of necessity was producing food for the family. Large garden plots of about a quarter acre were routine for our families. We remember the vegetable and flower garden that Grandmother Rocklage maintained, and a similar one to the east of the SCHAKES OF LA CHARETTE home. Potatoes, tomatoes, beans, cabbage, lettuce, corn, cucumbers, strawberries and onions were all routinely grown. Hoeing was a major repetitive event which few enjoyed. Even more work was required to preserve the produce-pickling cucumbers, making sauerkraut, jellies and jams and canning vegetables, fruits and even meat. An apple orchard was most common, but we also had peach, cherry and apricot trees encircling the south and west sides of the lawn around the home. Today many of us continue the practice of gardening but on a much smaller scale, and mostly for enjoyment.

ALL 1920-70´s RFD Gus Meyer was our Rural Free Delivery mailman for many years. Every week day morning at about 10 a.m. Gus would deliver the mail and pick up stamped envelopes at our mail box. Frequently he would also serve as the conduit between neighbors keeping us advised on conditions ranging from the flooding of rivers, current gossip or the status of a friend´s health.

ALL Family Pride 1920-80´s Martin and Flora Schake shared an unwavering commitment and pride in their family. Many times friends, relatives and associates would compliment them upon their family and they would always swell with pride. We too were frequently told of their satisfaction and joy associated with parenting, a trait which we hope continues for many generations.

Recalling these events also elicits a mixture of pride and nostalgia by the authors, but most importantly it represents an additional method of recording the way life was for four rural youths being reared in Charette Township, Warren County, Missouri during the mid-1900´s and beyond at the SCHAKES OF LA CHARETTE farm.

ALL 1998 A Humfeld Fable From a Low German Poem While Virginia, Helen, Wendy and Lowell were visiting their ancestoral family homes and other Humfeld Schake descendants in Germany this summer Rolf Sievert of Lemgo shared an old Lippe fabel with us. "It seems that a man was on his way from Lemgo to Humfeld, walking of course, as only doctors owned cars. After climbing the first hill he was tired and sat down on a bench at the roadside in the forest. After awhile a second man came up the hill from the opposite direction leading a calf by a rope, but the calf didn´t want to follow so the man was sweaty and upset. "Where do you come from?" asked the first man of the second who was actually a butcher from Lemgo taking the calf to his home. "From Humfeld," was the reply. "O, you poor man! I understand. My wife is from there too. She never obeys, instead she always tortures me. What can come good from Humfeld!"

REFERENCE

1)Bang ! went the doors of every bank in America. 1997. Chiles, J. R. Smithsonian. Vol. 28, Number 1. p.121.

Acknowledgments

This compilation of family records and histories was started in the early 1960´s when I sent an incomplete Schake family pedigree to my Aunts Hulda and Amanda and to my parents in an attempt to capture detail records of our family. This effort relied upon many published works, combined with the Genealogies of the Martin C. Schake Family compiled (handwritten) by Flora O. Schake of Marthasville, Missouri in the 1970�s, the Ahmann Family Tree, 1811 - 1922, compiled by G. A. Ahmann of East Backersfield, California in 1922, the 1978 Ahmann Family Tree by Martha Rocklage of Marthasville, Missouri plus the data files and assistance of many friends and relatives (Erika Sievert of Lemgo, Germany; Christine Johann zur Rocklage of Versmold, Germany; Rolf and Annelore Sievert of Lemgo, Germany; Thomas Meyer Ahmann of Mexico, Missouri; John Block of Coatsburg, Illinois and many others). Each has proven to be invaluable resources in the development of this study. Equally important to the process was the support and assistance provided by other family members and friends.

The broader interest in Ethnohistory and auswandering at the SCHAKES OF LA CHARETTE farm goes back another 20 years when I was a lad hunting Indian arrow heads on the SCHAKES OF LA CHARETTE family farm, often accompanied by my twin boyhood friends Arnold and Ronald Rekate. Here we would dream of the wonderful life the Osage Indians must have had as they roamed free, hunted and fished. I became enthralled in my desire to know more about these Indians, the King family, their slaves and the Schakes in Germany and those who had previously lived on this land where I was born. All of these individuals of the past spawned an unending sequel of questions of my parents. What were these people like, where did they come from, how did they live and come to accept, and fulfill, their place in time ? Another motivation perhaps was related to my being the youngest of all the grandchildren in both the Schake and Rocklage families of my generation. In some manner it was as if I participated in our family and community activities, but in an ancillary fashion due to my youthfulness. I was never really one of the gang.

This labor of love has been written with as much factual documentation as possible. Necessarily introspective views were also drawn upon. We trust that the later did not compromise our objectivity and result in a self-serving family history. Simply stated, the goals of this undertaking were to document our family history and share our life experiences over the past eight generations and beyond so that subsequent generations of Schakes, and others, would perhaps benefit from more complete answers to their youthful questions than we received. Where did my ancestors come from ? What did they do ? What were their living and social conditions like ? With whom did they interact ? What was it like living on a family farm ? Why did they leave Germany and come to America ? The list of these future questions is endless to include the role of the black slaves and Native Americans, but the opportunity to try to anticipate and partially answer them has been fun.

It too must be recognized that such an undertaking is never complete. Future family generations will emerge with even more interesting life stories to be lived, told, and recorded. Perhaps another goal anticipated from this work is that sometime in the future individuals with similar interest may continue this story of the SCHAKES OF LA CHARETTE. Ultimately one undertakes this chronology for the benefit of the children... and the process continues.

Thanks to everyone from around the world for your support, patience and encouragement in compiling this story of our lives, however those inputs may have been contributed.

Lowell M. Schake, Ph. D.

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Published privately by the Schake family in 1997.

The Schakes of La Charette is copyrighted; any commercial reproduction or usage is prohibited.
Private non-commercial use such as this compilation is encouraged.

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