Celebrate!

Reinhold Zielke
21 years old

Today's blog, on the eve of Reinhold's 140th birthday, we're going to look at some typical "summer" celebrations with the Zielke family. There were three May birthdays: Reinhold, of course, on 30 May 1880; Helen on 15 May 1919 and Raymond on 27 May 1922. Memorial Day (aka Decoration Day) was also celebrated consistently on May 30th back then.

Because Grandpa's birthday was on Memorial Day, the family's Memorial Day celebration was more typically a birthday party for him. The party was primarily a big family picnic. There would be fried chicken and ham, adding a wiener roast in the later years. There was potato salad, "Little" Emily's Kidney Bean Salad and, for dessert, two cakes: one chocolate the other white. Bananas were hard to come by back then, but if there were bananas available they'd have a real treat: Banana Cream Pie which was Grandpa's favorite!

Reinhold's Family: Early 1950s
Back L-R: Helen, Dorothy, Henry, Ray, Grace & Marge
Front L-R: Bertha, Reinhold, Martha & George

Most of the rest of the day was spent enjoying time with one another by sitting around, talking and drinking beer. Sometimes, they'd play a ball game in the pasture. Aunt Grace remembers one year when the men took buckets of water out to the pasture to pour down the gopher holes! They sure did know how to have a good time!

In later years, after the family had moved to "the Barker House" from the farm, they would watch the Oswego Memorial Day Parade from the house. The American Legion marched along with the Boy Scouts and the high school band played. There were no floats and no one threw out candy. Uncle Fred and Aunt Emma Witt would come to join the celebration sometimes. 

I asked Aunt Grace if they ever visited the cemeteries on Memorial Day. Turns out they took care of that BEFORE the holiday!!! They would usually go to the cemetery in Downers Grove the Saturday or Sunday before and plant geraniums. Grandma (Martha) Zielke also had planted a peony bush  on everyone's grave. Aunt Grace said that by doing that, she said she could be sure they'd all  have flowers for Memorial Day whether anyone came or not.

After Helen & Garnet moved to Kentucky, the family began to have similar reunion picnics whenever Aunt Helen came home to visit with the kids. When that happened, Helen's kids would get divided up and go to spend time with cousins close to their own ages.

1970 Family Reunion
Bob & Marge Kaetzer's House

Since this post began with May birthdays, let's recognize all the family birthdays:

• April: George on the 2nd, 1905; Grace on the 23rd, 1925
• May: Helen on the 15th, 1919; Ray on the 27th, 1922 & Reinhold on the 30th, 1880
• July: Marge on the 29th, 1927
• August: Henry on the 27th, 1908
• December: Bertha on the 6th, 1911; Louisa on the 14th, 1880; Martha on the 18th, 1890; Dorothy on the 22nd, 1933

Other than the big reunion picnic for Grandpa's birthday, the other birthdays were always "just another day on the farm, WITH A CAKE!" It was usually a white cake with white icing, but SOMETIMES, "Big Emily" would make a special birthday treat of Spice cake with BANANA  icing!

Even though the timing is off here, I just feel like I need to end this post with Kool and the Gang, come on, celebrate and have a good time! 

Grandpa Zielke had a Farm

Currier & Ives: The Farmer's Friends

While we know that "the farm" in Oswego wasn't Reinhold's first farm, this is the one that holds the memories for Aunt Grace. I'm certain life was pretty similar on the previous farm, although Grandpa did make sure this one had some perks, like electricity, in the farmhouse!

The farm itself was 100 acres. They had a HUGE garden that Grandma took care of as she LOVED to be outdoors. Aunt Grace remembers the typical garden produce with a LOT of asparagus, raspberries and potatoes. Grandma taught Grace and Marge to can and they were often left to it while Grandma spent time outdoors in the garden.

They kept about 12-15 dairy cows, a bull, pigs, chickens, ducks, sometimes sheep or geese and a team of horses. As we would expect, the primary goal of farm life was to feed the family and provide for their needs through the sale of the excess production.

Holstein Cattle

While the house had electricity, milking was still a job that had to be done by hand twice each day. Ray helped Grandpa with the milking most of the time while he was home, but Grace had to learn how to do it and did her fair share. She specifically remembers that Marge NEVER had to! She remembers that milking was especially hard for her because she was afraid of the livestock and Grandpa would milk 8 cows in the same amount of time she'd milk 4!

Brown Swiss Cattle

The Zielke herd was one of mixed breeds. They kept a few of the Swiss for their good butter fat, while the Holsteins provided a thinner milk for drinking. They had a bull for breeding the cattle. Fortunately, their bull wasn't a mean one, but he did have his own stanchion to keep him separated from the cows unless his "services" were needed.  I know the "citified" among us wouldn't think of this, but it is necessary for cows to calve periodically to ensure they will continue to produce milk for months into the future. Calves would be butchered for the veal, integrated into the herd or sold. Aunt Grace said they didn't frequently butcher the calves as it was harder to preserve the beef than pork from the pigs.

The primary purpose to raising pigs is to preserve the meat. No part of the pig went to waste. The lard was rendered to use in lye soap making, the intestines were cleaned to make sausage casing, blood was collected to make blood sausage and the other various parts of the pig were preserved for later consumption. In our "Staffeldt Family History," we can learn more about the preparation and preservation from Howard Dannenberg*:

 Lard (fat) was cooked slowly on the stove and then strained into crocks for storage. The bits strained out were like fried bacon and called 'crackling.' They made pork sausage and metwurst (like today's summer sausage). The pork sausage was all fried down, usually in the oven while the lard was rendering, then packed in fruit jars or crocks with the lard poured over it. There were no freezers then. 

A wash tub would be used to mix sausage The sausage was kneaded and salt and pepper  was added in the wash tub. After mixing, it was tasted. A patty was made, fried and tasted to see if there was enough seasoning. According to Howard, this was the best part of butchering, although he never got to be a "taster." The sausage was then pressed into a casing (made from the pig intestines) in a sausage press. The intestines had been washed out and scraped with a silver knife. In scraping, the inner and outer skin was scraped off and the center skin was used for the casing.

Summer sausage (metwurst) was smoked for three days in the smokehouse. They would build a fire of sawdust to just smolder and smoke; too much fire would cook the sausage. After three days, it was left to hang until used. Hams were smoked seven days or rubbed with salt and put in crocks in a brine. Pork liver was not tasty alone, so Howard's mother blanched it in boiling water until it was no longer red, then ground it to make the sausage. Then, they even used the pig head!!! Howard said he had to saw the head, cut the snout off and throw it away, and split the head down the center. The brains were removed and fried. The rest of the head was boiled to add to the liver sausage or added to the ears and feet and legs for head cheese. Pork chops were fried, packed in crocks with a lard cover and then stored in the basement/fruit cellar. When used, they were dug out and heated to remove the lard.

Before the animals could be used for food, however, they needed to ensure the livestock was taken care of so that they were beneficial to feed the family. Primary crops on the farm were corn, oats and hay. Of course in the summer months, the animals were able to graze in the pastures, but preparation had to be done in the summer/fall to be able to feed them in the winter.

Silage was a primary food for the cattle. Silage was basically fermented corn and smelled to high heaven! Corn was chopped while it was still green and then added to the silo on a silo filler. The chopped corn needed to be tramped down to pack it tight so that it would ferment. 

Antique silage chopper
May not be exactly what the Zielkes had,
but it gives you the idea.

Aunt Grace and Aunt Marge didn't have to tramp down the silage, but they did have to throw it down from the silo to be able to feed the cows. The silo was the circular structure on the north side of the barn, about six feet away. It had a cement floor and no roof.  They had to climb up the ladder on the outside of the silo to the door at the level of the silage and crawl in to break up the silage.

View of a silo showing
doors to enter various levels

Once they got in the silo, they used 5-tine silage forks to break up the silage and throw it onto the chute made of galvanized metal. The chute led to a wheelbarrow at the bottom. They had to work systematically as they broke up the silage to make sure the level of the silage stayed consistent and easy to access the next day. From the wheelbarrow, the silage was taken and dropped in the feed trough in front of the cows to eat. This task alone took about a half hour to complete.

Silage Fork

Oats were ground into a feed for the livestock as well. The oats were stored in the grainery and about once each month, a truck with a grinder would come to the farm to grind oats to make the feed. 

"Modern" Amish Hay Loader

While the picture above is a modern Amish hay loader and wouldn't be the same as what Aunt Grace remembers, it gives a pretty good idea of what was involved in the early days on the farm. She says that the hay was cut and thrown onto a wagon and then, from the wagon, a HUGE two-armed hay fork was used to lift the hay and drop it into the hay mow on the upper level of the barn. They would climb the ladder up to the hay mow and using pitchforks, throw the hay down to for the animals. She says she wasn't the most coordinated person (maybe it's in my genes) and while she was okay climbing the ladder to get into the hay mow, she had a terrible time getting back on the ladder to come down! All in a day's work on the Zielke Farmstead!

As I conclude this post, I marvel once again at how difficult life had to have been without all the equipment and technology available to us today. I know my generation has had great benefits, but I think we can all imagine what our parents/grandparents experienced and appreciate them for all they did to help make our lives easier. When next we're tempted to grumble about how hard our lives are, I hope we can stop, take a moment and be thankful we don't have to hand milk the cows, throw the stinky silage down from the silo or eat parts of a pig that I wouldn't even want to look at!

*Howard Dannenberg is the great grandson of Karl Staffeldt, brother of Wilhelm (Martha & Louisa's father)

Let's Take a Tour

As I've been doing my weekly video chats with Aunt Grace, I've come to realize that it would be beneficial if I could actually visualize what she's talking about. I have some hazy memories of the farm from when I was really young, but not enough to really help me "see" what I'm hearing. So, today's blog is going to take you on a tour of the farm and the farmhouse where our parents (grandparents) grew up!

The Reinhold Zielke Family Farm, Oswego, Illinois
Aerial View Late 1950s

The following is a legend with numbers corresponding to the numbers written on the photo above:

1. The Farmhouse: In this photo it is facing east. It has since been moved across the road and now faces north.
2. Kitchen on main floor; Bedroom and small attic upstairs
3. Wash house: About 10' from the back door of the house used for laundry in the summertime.
4. 2 car garage (Wasn't there in the early years)
5. Grainery for storing corn and oats
6. Pig Barn
7. Barn for cows/milking. The cows were cared for on the main floor of the barn; the upper level was for storing hay.The silo attached on the west side of the barn is a circular structure with no roof. 
8. Milk house for cooling and storing the milk for use
9. Tool Shed (May have originally been a 1-car garage)
10. Chicken House
11. BIG Garden
12. (Not part of the Zielke Farm; actually belonged to the Herrins on the neighboring farm)
13. Pasture
14. Lane that led to the Cattle Pass under Rt. 23 to get to the pasture.
15. Pasture & Hog Lot
16. Grandma & Grandpa Zielke's final house for the later years
17. "The Barker House"
18. Probably pasture before the highway went in; Later the site where Aunt Marge's home was built

An interesting tidbit as you're looking at the picture: The two houses next to Grandma & Grandpa's house (#16) and the three houses across the street were Sears, Roebuck houses! (A bit of a teaser for a future memory!)

Now, let's take a look inside the house. From the porch, there were two doors into the house. One went into the kitchen; the other into the dining room, but that door was NEVER used! There was also a door, beneath the 2nd floor window, that led to stairs. One set of stairs led down to the basement; the other led up to a landing to the boys' bedroom. There were two attic spaces upstairs: a small attic was off of Ray's bedroom; a larger attic was off Grace's and Marge's bedroom.

Coming through the kitchen door from the porch, there was ONE cabinet to the right of the door. The cabinet went from floor to ceiling with a cupboard at the top and three HEAVY drawers below. (Could you imagine having only ONE cabinet in your kitchen?!?!?) 

Continuing counter-clockwise from there, next came the door into the dining room. The dining room had a large table that Aunt Grace's daughter, Jeanine, still owns. Back in the kitchen, the door to the dining room was followed by the cookstove. (The chimney is visible in the picture between numbers 1 & 2) Continuing counter-clockwise, next came the door into THE bathroom that also connected to the master bedroom. (Have you been counting the doors so far?!?!) The bathroom was large and L-shaped. 

Next to the bathroom door was the kitchen sink and then the door to "the little room." The little room was the home for the water tank overhead and a trap door that led to the basement. There was a wide ledge at the back of the trap door that held Aunt Grace's washing machine (no dryer) when she and Uncle Austin lived in the house.

Next to the little room was the large kitchen table (which was pushed up against the wall except when everyone was seated around it), then a BIG pantry. The pantry is where most of the kitchen items were stored, since there was only the one cabinet. And we're back to the door that leads out onto the porch. 

Not one of the most exciting blog entries I've ever written, but I hope as time goes by and I share more of Aunt Grace's memories of life growing up here, it will help you all to visualize where they were and what they were seeing. Until next time...