Victoria MN Newspaper

Dad said that in 1981, Bernie and Louie also each bought farms out in Lincoln County by the town of Hendricks. Bernie bought 240 acres. Louie bought 160 acres.

The list was done and my yellow tablet still had space and there were still many miles to go until we got to Tioga. Actually, Dad wasn't done farming yet either. He said in addition to running the land that he purchased, he also rented more land.

“We rented 360 acres of Grandma Opdahl’s farm after Grandpa died in 1973, for three years at $20 an acre,” he said. “We rented 200 acres from Ted Johnson for three years at $20 an acre. We rented 480 acres from Spanton for $45 an acre.”

Dad said that Paul, his youngest son, came to buy 80 acres of the Spanton farm for $1,600 an acre. Now all the land is worth many times more than what was paid for it.

They also rented 480 acres from Vern Mac, 480 acres from Ron Peterson, and 110 acres of work land -- the “duck farm" -- from Bill Volden. All together, my dad and brothers worked over 3,000 acres at one time. I was more amazed at Dad’s memory and chronology than I was at the acreage.

Said Mom, “No wonder I’m tired.” It went without saying that my mother took care of Central Headquarters all these years, with three squares a day for Dad and the boys plus a couple lunches in between, many of the meals hauled to the field so they didn't waste time coming home. I'm talking full-scale chicken dinners or roast beef and potatoes and gravy and corn on the cob. When the guys were working land at home or next to the home place, like the duck farm, they could come home for dinner without killing too much time.

It seems to have been called the duck farm even when Mom was a little girl. It's low and wet but tillable, especially in a dry year. “Albert Jenson used to own the duck farm and my friend Arlene lived there," said Mom. “They moved to California and she’d send me sea shells from the ocean, like 12 and 13-year old girls would do.” The duck farm was also centrally located between the farms where each of my parents grew up. For a while, Grandpa’s brother Benny Opdahl and his wife Alice lived on the duck farm and then the Pryzmus family.

Said Dad, “At one time we had three four-wheel drive tractors and I worked around the clock with the boys. I couldn’t have done it without the boys. In 1971, I could have quit with what I had and the boys get a job but they wanted to farm. But we split things and it all worked out.”

Said Mom, “The years went by too fast.”

Said Dad, “I auctioned off Van Hefty’s in the 1980’s for the same amount I paid for it. I was hard up then. Then I built a house in Texas.”

***

By this time all the cut-up apples were gone and we had gotten into the cut-up vegetables sitting at Mom’s feet. It didn’t seem like a long drive at all. Like me, my mother was the oldest of seven children. Mom was born on January 16th, 1927. I asked how she came to live south of Minneota, on that road out of Ghent, near the Claeys farm. I hadn't yet connected all the pieces.

“When I was born, Mama and Daddy lived six miles north of Minneota,” she said. “It was the John Berg farm. Then we moved south of Minneota and rented from Frank DeSmet. Junior was born there. Then we moved to the Jennen farm by Ghent and rented from Grandpa Mike Jennen. Elaine, Clarone, Sharlene, and Mike were born there. When Sharlene was being born I ran across to the duck farm to tell my dad that Mama was having a baby. He was threshing for Albert Jensen."

“We lived on the Jennen farm until November 11, 1940,” said Mom, who would have been 13 years old at the time. “We moved off that farm in the blizzard, the Armistice Day Blizzard. We moved next door to the Melby farm, and that’s where Dan was born. Then my dad bought the Melby farm and I lived there until I got married. Mama had saved $100 in egg money in a pail, to help.”

Click here to continue “Look at Mom’s Hands.”