Continued my Dad, “When Pa died in 1959, Ma didn’t have any money.  It started out her farm and they had lost everything.  Ma screamed and threw dishes.  She had a good arm.  Those were tough times.  My brothers and I each gave Ma $100 one time to buy groceries.  Pa always said his farm was the best farm.  He could be standing in a pothole and he still said it was the best.  I’ve never said that.  There are lots of better farms than mine.  Everybody’s farm is better than mine.”

         “Farming has been the life of my family,” said Dad, staring out the car window onto the Dakota plains.  He didn't say that over the decades of his life he became a prosperous farmer in Lyon County.  The word “prosperous” would be foreign to him and he’d deny it.  In fact, Dad came to purchase a total of ten farms, all located within farming distance of the home place.

         I asked Dad if he could remember which farms he bought, in what order, how big they were, and how much he paid for them.  He could, and he did.  If nothing else, it gives a history of farmland prices over the years in southwestern Minnesota. 

         First he rented the home place from Grandpa Opdahl in 1948, and then in 1958 he rented a farm down the road a piece that was owned by Sig and Linda Hanson.

         1) In May 1960, Dad bought the home place from Grandpa Opdahl, 231 acres for $135 an acre.

         2) In 1963, Dad bought Sig’s farm, 160 acres for $200 an acre.  He recalled, “My brother Don pointed his finger at me and said, ‘That’s the biggest mistake you’ve ever made.’”

         3) In 1967, Dad bought Mrs. Coon’s farm, 160 acres for $175 an acre.  Dad said that he and Mom and the kids had been on a summer trip to the Black Hills and they drove home to buy it.

         4) In about 1971, Dad bought Carl Muhl’s farm, 160 acres for $225 an acre.  “That’s Bernie’s place now,” he said of his oldest son.  “Bernie has really fixed it up, terraced the land, tiled it, and picked up a million rocks.  It was full of cockleburs and had little topsoil.  Archie Noyes said I always bought land that nobody wanted.”

         5) In 1972 or 1973, Dad bought the second Coons farm, 160 acres for about $300 an acre.  He bought it from Margaret Coons, the daughter of Mrs. Coons.  Said Dad, “That’s Louie’s farm now.”  Louie is the second oldest son.

         6) In about 1975, Dad bought the Johnny Gillund farm, 160 acres for $450 an acre. 

         7) In 1976 or 1977, Dad bought the Andrew Kerkaert farm at an auction, 155 acres, no building site included, for $850 an acre.  It’s located about a half mile west of Bernie’s.

         8) In about 1978, Dad bought Ed Debaer’s farm, 80 acres for $850 an acre.  It’s located two miles southwest of Hemnes Lutheran Church, across the road from where Mom’s Grandpa Jennen had homesteaded.  “Nellie and Hank Windy used to live there,” said Mom of her aunt and uncle.  Nellie was a [Jennen] sister of my Grandma Opdahl.

         9) In about 1979, Dad bought the Van Hefty farm, 240 acres for $650 an acre.  “I bought it while we were in Hawaii,” said Dad.  “The sale came up and we didn’t want to stay home from Hawaii so I was on the phone for the sale.”

         10) In 1984, Dad bought Doc Merrit’s farm, 160 acres for $870 an acre.  “It fit good between Gillund’s and Sig’s."

 

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Look at Mom’s Hands

Dedicated to the sunshine of truth,

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The Victoria GAZETTE

May 2014

Mom’s job during harvesting was to haul dinner out to the field.  Sometimes I drove home from Victoria, rode along, and took pictures.  It was a many-course dinner at noon.