Chapter 4 • Threshing Time, 1910

The Soo Line Railroad was built in 1904, the year I was born, and the village of Callaway was built in 1905. It was a booming little town with stores, bank, hotels, school, and churches. They even had a stave mill where they bought four-foot logs and sawed them into staves to make barrels, tubs, etc. One night I had an earache and could not sleep, and the sky was all red; the stave mill in Callaway burned down that night. My brothers worked there for a short time.

On the 4th of July 1910 they had a celebration in Callaway. They had the streets all lined up with green trees they hauled in from the forests to shade the wooden sidewalks of the village. At that time there were no trees in Callaway. They had built a bowery to dance in. It had no roof, only tree branches overhead to shade it, and there were benches inside to sit on. They danced in the afternoon and evening. The music was provided by local men who played violins and a piano. There was always a ball game to watch. The Indians were wonderful ball players. Callaway was on the edge of the Indian reservation, so there were many Indians in Callaway.
They had foot races and gave prizes to the winners, and there were also races for the women and children. I believe this was the last 4th of July celebration Callaway had, anyway, I was only five years old. My Dad drove his team with the surrey with the fringe on top to Callaway.

When we were little children, we did not have modern houses with water and bathrooms; we went to the outdoor privy in all kinds of weather. In the summer there was a big flat rock tilted in the slough below our house. At the foot of this rock there was a deep hole, and most all summer there was water in it, so mom told us to go to the rock to wash our feet in the evening before we went to bed. This rock was in the pasture below the house, and there was nice soft green grass just like velvet all the way back up the hill to the house. Some nights when Frank and Lawrence got through eating super, their little heads would fall down into their plates, fast asleep. Sometimes they would crawl behind the old wood range, and go to sleep on the floor. Those times I don't think there was much washing done.

One warm night in October, we had gone to wash our feet. It was dusk. The threshing machine was there in the pasture, threshing for dad. They worked from morning till late at night, when the weather would permit. Frank and I went and sat on the hillside to watch them thresh. It was a beautiful night with the sky full of stars, but there were more than stars in the sky. The big smoke stack of the steam rig sprayed the sky with millions of little sparks of all colors. It was just as pretty as your fireworks of today.

Dad at threshing time with Fritjof Londeen's threshing machine

Fritjof Londeen owned the biggest steam threshing rig in the neighborhood. These threshing runs went all fall. First it was shock threshing, then later come the stack threshing, there was always a fever of excitement at threshing time. We loved this time of the year, with all the men and wagons, and visitors. They seemed to like to drop in and have lunch or dinner with the threshers. They came with their white collars and black suits into all the dirt that was blowing around. I can still smell the smoke and dust of those by-gone days. At lunchtime Mom, Annie and all us kids were loaded into the grain wagon with Dad to go to the machine with coffee for the men. There were usually about eighteen men to feed. Their lunch consisted of sandwiches, cake, cookies and coffee.
Mom and Annie milked the cows in the evening and served supper after dark when the men came in with their loads. When they unloaded their loads, they came to the house to eat before they went home. Sometimes some of them stayed over night and slept in the hay mow. What an enormous amount of food she had to cook to feed eighteen men and her family! They were lucky if they got all the dishes washed and in bed by midnight, then up at 4 am. in the morning to start a new threshing day.

Lunch break at threshing time, 1910

In the year 1910 we had some pictures taken of the crew and family by the threshing machines in the grain wagon while they were drinking coffee. Mom had a big white enamel kettle full of coffee, a big white coffee boiler, and a milk can full of cold drinking water with the big dipper in it to drink from. The men were thirsty from the heat and dirt.

Sheriff Conrad Glaum in Detroit had an auction sale years ago. My Dad bought a two-seated surrey with the fringe on top with side curtains, for fifty dollars. It was very new and we were sure proud to go to church in it in such style, or anywhere else, A few years later on the Fourth of July 1911, Dad and Rudy loaded Dad's homemade boat onto the lumber wagon, and the rest of us rode in the surrey with our picnic dinner. We went to Sugar Bush Lake, east of Richwood, we had planned on fishing and enjoying the day. We had not been there long before it started to pour down rain. There were some empty shacks by the lake, but the roofs leaked so it was not really dry in them either, but there were many other people there too, so the shacks were pretty full. Somebody had a phonograph with records there.
After the rain was over, they tried fishing, but their luck was not good, so we started home. On a wet 4th of July, many of the others were Indians and some whites, and some had bottles of liquor and were in high spirits.

Main Street of Richwood Village; Left - Mrs Nettie Olson's Boarding House, Center - Rice's Store, Right - Hazelton's Store

Mrs Nettie Olson's boarding house and the Union Church in the background