Wintertime in the Country

Francis and Daddy with King and Queen

For as long as I can remember,  Daddy would tell about the difficulty he faced when it came to removing the snow just so he could clean the barn and simply get out of the drive way.  This was before he had a tractor to put a blade on to push the snow with.  He had to use horses and use a stone bolt behind the horses, which actually just packed the snow down.  The picture above shows King and Queen the horses, and Francis Spencer, who was our cousin and our farrier and one of our best neighbors ever and with Daddy and Laddie, our Collie dog.  You can tell that it was really cold, by the breath showing from the horses.  This picture was taken in 1946.

Eugene Drew with Ned and Dutch

Daddy cleaned the barn by hand in those days and used a wooden box placed on a set of bob sleds. In turn, that box was also unloaded by hand.  Hard work!  He continued to do it this way in the winter time until he was able to purchased a manure spreader with steel wheels in the late 1940's.  This picture was taken in February, 1941.  The horses are ones that Mother and Daddy started farming with Ned and Dutch.  The little boy standing by the wagon is my cousin, Eugene Drew.  He stayed with Mother and Daddy while his Mother and Daddy were getting a new baby brother.  (Uncle Pete and Aunt Eloise and cousin Dan)

You can see from the third picture that there was some really deep snows back then, and some hand shoveling was done and from what I remember we didn't have snow shovels, we used scoop shovels and we used those things for everything, I remember riding down hill on them, shoveling coal into the stove, shoveling corn into feed bags to get a grist ready, scooping up oats into a bag, any type of grain that would be in the granary.

When we got the first snow of the season, we always used the scoop shovel to shovel snow up against the house, as that kept the wind from blowing in around the foundation.  Once we had the first snow, it usually stayed all winter long.  It often came on Halloween night and the ground would stay white for the rest of the winter.  Which was fine with me because I hated mud.  With snow on the ground there was always something for us kids to do.  Snow on the ground kept the pipes going to the barn from freezing. I don't think I ever remember of the pipes freezing and the barn was always warm from the body heat of the cows.  Jerry and I always liked to go to the barn with Daddy at night and play with the kitties or  play in the pile of fresh straw that Daddy would have thrown down from the loft, to bed the cows with.  When we got older, that was my favorite job, bedding the cows with fresh straw and feeding the baby calves.  I still have a scar on my finger where a calf bit me, when I was teaching one to drink from a bucket.

Daddy

In 1941, Daddy started driving school bus for Charleston School District which presented a problem.  He had to be able to get out of the drive way. so he and Francis Spencer devised a way they could plow the driveway with a plank on the stone bolt with extra weight on the stone bolt.  Daddy put chains on the school bus and he was able to pick up all of the kids.  Bob McConnell told me he was amazed at the ease Daddy showed in being able to to negotiate the rural road to get the kids to school. Daisy tells me that she remembers riding on this bus and the majority of the bus was made from wood, she said that she caught her toe on something near the door and fell and hurt her leg one time, she her memories of the "wooden bus" are not the best.

 I remember Daddy telling of one snow storm when it was particularly difficult to get all of the kids picked up. He got to the school a bit late and the principal met him at the door to tell him they were going to dismiss school, so he could take all of the kids home again.  He said he told the man,"All right, sir, we will go home.", and turned and asked the kids if they all wanted to ride downhill instead of going to school.  Everyone was happy!  The older boys had to help him push the bus up the hill that day to get the kids home, but they didn't care, they were going sledding.

Bob McConnell always said that Daddy was the best school bus driver he ever had.  All of us kids loved Bob and grew up having a lot of respect for him.  He always drove the truck that took our calves and cows to market and brought us livestock to us when we needed a new cow, or even a rabbit, or a goat.

 *A little side story about Bob McConnell.  He came to load a couple of hogs for Daddy and he couldn't get them to go up the ramp into the truck.  Daddy suggested putting a pail over the pigs head first, well it worked like a charm and Bob used that trick from then on.  Bob loved sharing that story with us kids and later sharing it with the grandkids.  Every-time he came he had a dime in his  pocket for us kids and later it was a quarter for the grandkids and when he died, my son who had just been here from Florida to visit with him, wanted to make sure he had a quarter in his hand when he was buried.  Bob McConnell, a well remembered friend and neighbor.