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Eileen Kettwick & Donald Meils
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Eileen Kettwich
Mary Kathryn Elizabeth (Knapp) Kettwick - Eileen's Mother
Eilert Uffe Kettwick - Eileens Father
Gesche (Schlomer) Kettwich - Grandmother
Uffa Kettwich - Grandfather
Eileen Kettwick & Donald Meils
...Their Story...
Woodford County, Illinois
Genealogy
Trails
Eileen Kettwich
Mary Kathryn Elizabeth (Knapp) Kettwick - Eileen's
Mother
Eilert Uffe Kettwick - Eileens Father
Gesche (Schlomer)
Kettwich - Grandmother
Uffa Kettwich - Grandfather
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Reminiscences of
Eileen Eleanor Kettwich Meils Eileen shared the following with Donaleen: My mother
was Mary Kathryn Elizabeth Knapp, (Katie) born April 16, 1898. Katie was
not yet born when she lost her father in an accident. He was chopping down
a tree and it fell on him as he was trying to push the hired. man out of
the way as the tree was falling. Shortly thereafter Katie was born.
However, her mother died of what everyone says was a broken heart. There
were four Knapp children who were now orphans: Phoebe, Emilia, Frank and
Mary Kathryn. The four children were put in an
Knapp children: Katie, Phoebe,
Katie & Eilert
Kettwich Katie attended elementary school to the eighth grade and then started high school, an unusual occurrence in her time. She did not complete high school. My father was Eilert Uffun Kettwich, (Eilie), born October 18,1889. Eilie was one of twelve children. There were six boys and six girls. A baby sister died in California and another sister Lena died in the flu epidemic in the 1800's. The rest of the family lived and farmed close to Minonk and Flanagan in Illinois. Eilie attended a German school in Windtown, Illinois. The German schools were different in that they managed both an elementary and a secondary school education. Upon leaving German school, Eilie thought about attending college. He was very adept with "figures." His father wanted him to go on to school, but Eilie decided he wanted to farm. Katie's
parents lived in the area west of Minonk until their early deaths.
Eilert's folks emigrated from Germany to prospect for Gold in Northern
California. They worked the gold fields for 2 years and then, having found
no gold, they left California and went to Illinois to farm. Why Illinois?
The story is that they knew some other German families who lived there and
decided re-locating there would be friendly. (There is another story about
Grandmother Gesche Kettwich attached to this bio.)
Eilert & Katie
Kettwich Eilert & Katie
Kettwich They settled all a small farm southeast of Minonk, Illinois and Eilie became a farmer. He had about 80 acres and rented 80 more. He farmed with a team of horses. He did all the plowing and planting with 2 big work horses. There was another horse that was hitched to a buggy when they went to town or visiting. This horse and buggy was a gift from Eilie's Father, Uffa. Eilie was given the choice of a college education or a horse and buggy. He chose the horse and buggy! In those days, a college education was 2 years of school and we guess that he figured as a farmer the horse and buggy would be more useful.
I (Eileen) was born on October 12, 1914 ~Tell us a little about the house. Did it have indoor plumbing? The first house on the farm was very small; maybe 4 rooms. It was later converted to a garage. All things were used on a farm. Dad (Eilie) built a larger more modern two story house for his family. There was running water and a bathroom in this house and it operated with a pumping system. This bathroom was a very modem convenience and not one usually found in homes at this time. They had a flush system and a claw foot bath tub.
There were electric lights on the walls operated by what was called a Delco system. This was an electric system, powered by a bank of 16 Delco Batteries wired together; in turn, the batteries were wired to the lighting fixtures to provide light for the home. These batteries were usually stored in the basement and they were recharged by a small gasoline engine. ~How did your mother cook meals? In the cooler months, Katie cooked on a Universal cook stove which was a big iron stove with a large iron top on which the pots and pans sat to cook. There were large round iron covers like burners on the top which lifted and corn cobs, coal or wood were put in there and burned to heat the iron stove top. The oven was in the center of the stove and was heated by the burning corn cobs surrounding it. It was very difficult to regulate the heat with this kind of a stove. In the summer time a little kerosene stove was used for cooking. It had burners more like the ones we have today. There was a long reservoir on the end of the stove which held water. That water was warmed when the stove was fired and the hot water was used for cooking and washing dishes. Over the top of the back of the stove were warming ovens. These had doors that lifted so food could be placed inside and kept warm. These stoves got really warm and could warm up a kitchen nicely on a winter's day. ~What foods did she prepare? In the
early 1900's, farms were very self-sufficient. Dad butchered beef, pork
and chickens and Mom had a garden. They
Katie Knapp
Kettwich When Dad butchered hogs, they would render the fat down and put the meat into large crocks and pour the fat over the meat. The fat would harden and the meat would be preserved. When they wanted a pork chop, they had to chop it out of the lard. The hams and bacon from the pigs were rubbed with a special smoking salt and hung in the basements to "cure." They might hang for several months before they were ready to eat. Apples came by the barrel and were placed in the cool basement. We ate them through the winter. ~What were your favorite things to eat? Of all the great things Mom made, her noodles were the best. She would make a flour based dough, roll it out very thin and cut the very thin strips with a sharp knife. These strips would then be dried and then boiled in water for dinner. YUM! Great noodles! ~Do you have any special memories of the farm? When I was about 6 years old there was a very bad thunder and lightning storm. Dad and his helpers had just cut the hay and the barn haymow was full of hay. Suddenly the lightning hit the barn and the fire started. It burned very easily and soon the. whole barn was in flames. Dad was in the barn trying to get the animals out. Mom was on the old crank telephone, trying to get the neighbors to come and help. There were no fire trucks and the only way to put that fire out was to have the men come and form a fire brigade. This was where one man stood at the pump and filled buckets and then passed them on down the line to the last man who threw the water on the fire. While Dad was struggling to get the last calf out, I (Eileen) was standing in the door of the house screaming for my Dad. I was afraid he would get burned or hurt in the barn. He heard me and walked the very frightened calf he had on a rope lead near to the water tank, away from the fire and came running to me at the house, The little calf, I remember, was so frightened he stayed right where he was put and did not run away. Of course, the neighbors all came and tried to help but the barn burned to the ground. This was a great financial loss to my Mom and Dad and was one of the reasons they finally gave up farming and moved to town. The other reason they had to leave the farm was that the 80 rented acres were taken from them and given to another farmer who had just gotten married. Eighty acres were not enough to support a family. Dad did carpenter work after he moved to town. Dad's brother, John, was working for Gerhardt Leffel's and got him a job working with Gerhardt's contracting company. Later John started his own business building homes and Dad worked with. him. These were hard times for Mom and Dad. Contracting jobs were not steady work because the weather determined when they could work. Winter with cold and snow, and spring with the rains were times when contractors did not work much. During this time Dad had to do odd jobs around town to keep the family in food. Sometimes he worked for the local bowling alley or did work at a tavern to pick up a little extra cash. There wasn't anything like today's federal government unemployment help. It was up to each person to support himself and his family as best as he could with any kind of available job. Another thing I remember is that we put up a tree the day before Christmas and trimmed it with popcorn strings and cranberry strings. We used a needle and thread to string them. That was fun, partly because we could eat the popcorn. We put candles in little candle holders that clipped on to the tree branches. The tree was a real tree and we had to be very careful of the fire on the candles and it was only lit for Christmas Eve. After we decorated the tree, I went to bed and got up very early the next morning. I ran down the stairs to see what Santa left. I got lots of toys and was so excited I ran back upstairs to get my Mom and Dad. All the relatives came from far and near for Christmas Day and we had a big dinner for all of them. That night I went to bed pleased with the day. BUT, when I got up the next morning and went down the stairs, the tree had disappeared. "Where did Santa take my tree?" I cried. Mom said that he took it away. I looked out the window and saw it lying in the snow. I was really upset with Santa for taking my tree away and just throwing it in the snow. Everyone worked on a farm and when I was about six I had a little glove and a hook on a strap that was attached to the glove. This hook was used to remove corn from the stalk. We didn't have big machines on our farm to harvest the corn in the field. We would have to walk the field and take each ear of corn from the stalk by hand. My Dad, Mom and I would walk the fields and strip the ears of com from the stalk. The rows were planted further apart than they are now and it was easier to walk between the rows of corn. It also took longer for the corn to mature and it was often very cold in the fields when we stripped the corn. My job was to get the ears of corn close to the bottom of the stalk. We would hook the corn where it attached to the stalk, pull down with the hook and the ear would come off the stalk. We would then throw it into the wagon and it would be taken to the corn crib where the corn would be put on the elevator, the husk stripped off and the ear would be taken up and into the corn crib where it would air dry. Most of our corn was used to feed the livestock on the farm. it was hard work, stripping the ears of corn. When the corn was being put into the crib the very best ears were picked out and stuck on drying sticks that looked like a little tree. These ears were then shucked of the corn kernels and those kernels were used for planting corn the next year. The fancy hybrid corns of today weren't available yet. Besides raising cows, pigs, chickens and corn, Dad also planted oats to feed the horses and the cows. Oats were a mainstay on a farm like ours but were not planted in rows like the corn. There was a machine pulled by the horses that scattered the oat seeds. It was called "sowing" the oats. When it came time to cut the oats, someone with a thrashing machine would be called to the farmer's field to cut down the oats and put in bales, then stack them into shocks. Those shocks would stay in the field while the oats dried. Then the threshing machine would come along and the shocks would have to be thrown into the machine where the oak kernels would be removed and the straw pitched onto the hay racks. Even after
we moved to town, we would help on Aunt Phoebe's farm during thrashing
time. Mom would help get the big dinner for the workers helping with the
oats and I would ride on the water cart that took the gallon jugs of water
to the fields. They had a car that was called a Touring Car: A 4-door Chevrolet Sedan. One day Mom and I went to the neighbors and she went inside to visit. I stayed outside and played with the neighbor boys. We got into the car and played with the steering wheel. One of the boys twisted off the knob in the center of the steering wheel and dropped it. We looked and looked but could not find that knob. It held the steering wheel tight. When it was time to go home we still had not found it but no one told. We didn't want to get into trouble. Mom drove it home and we almost made it, but just as we got to our farm and tried to turn into our lane, the car wouldn't turn and Mom ran off the road and into the pasture fence and tore it down. She backed the car up, managed to get it straightened and into the lane and to the house. When Dad came into the house, he wanted to know how the hole got in the fence. "Oh!" Mom said, "It must have been the Watkins Man." (The Watkins man was a salesman who traveled through the country side selling supplies to farmer's wives and who got blame for things until someone found the dent in the car!) Another
time, we went to Mom's sister's house, Aunt Amelia. To get to their farm,
you had to go down a huge hill and ford the creek. Well, we started across
but the car got stuck and my Dad had to walk to the farm and get Uncle
Bill (Amelia's husband) to come with his team of horses to pull that silly
car out of the creek bed. We got to wait in the car in the middle of the
creek. There were no interstates but there were roads. Most of the roads were dirt or gravel and they were very narrow. In some places they were single lane dirt paths. The highways were concrete in some places and gravel in other places, depending on the whim of the contractor who cared for the roads in each county. There were some speed limits on the highways of 45 mph and on other roads the speed was what was called reasonable and proper. HMMM! The highway that went through Minonk was called Highway Number 2. It was a main road north and south through Illinois. When the Federal Government took over the highways, that road was changed to U.S. Route 51. It was a narrow two lane concrete road that went from north of Rockford to Cairo in Southern Illinois and was a main business road for Illinois. This road has largely been replaced by Interstate 39. I remember another story about roads and rain. One day Mom and I wanted to visit her sister Amelia and family in Kappa, Illinois. We got on the train in Minonk, the Illinois Central Railroad, and went to Kappa. Amelia's husband Bill met the train and took us home. We visited and then decided to go to Bloomington and go shopping. So we, Mom (Katie) and her sister Amelia and daughters Ethel, Dorothy and I were driven to the city by Uncle Bill. He parked the car on the street and we all went shopping. While we were shopping a big thunderstorm came up and it rained and rained. We went to get the car and it wasn't there. They called the police but no one could find the car. It was still pouring down rain. Uncle Bill called a taxi to take us home and the taxi took us as far as the Kappa road. He refused to go any farther as the road was a sea of mud. Uncle Bill had to walk down the road in the mud to the next farm to find a farmer who came with his tractor and trailer to take us back to the farm. I learned to drive at age 14. There were no requirements for driver's licenses. We just got in the car and drove to where we wanted to go. Dad just took me out on the dusty, dirt road and showed me how to drive the car. After I learned to drive, I could take Mom where she wanted to go. She didn't drive much after the accident when she drove the car into the fence. . ~How did you celebrate Christmas? We went to church in Minonk on Christmas Eve. We would be all dressed up in our new Christmas clothes. I had to say a "Piece". That was usually a poem that you had to memorize about Jesus and Christmas. All of the children in Sunday School had to say their piece on Christmas Eve. All the mothers and fathers and Grandmas and Grandpas came to church to hear the children sing and say their piece and the church was full to standing room only. After the Service we got a small box of hard candy as a Christmas Gift from the Church Sunday School.
Eileen's
Christening I had all kinds of toys as I was an only child for a long time. I would get dolls, buggies, doll beds and I had a table and chairs and some dishes. I had a teddy bear. In the country I had the attic room all fixed up like a doll apartment. It had a doll davenport of brown velvet, a table and chairs and cupboard with dishes. I also had a doll bed and a doll buggy there. ~Was there anything special that you remember about the toys? I remember one year at Christmas the neighbors down the road had a terrible fire. All the buildings on their farm burned and they thought it was from the candles on the tree. The children lost all of their Christmas gifts and the family lost everything and Mom asked me if I wanted to give one of my dolls to the little girl. Well I did not want to give her one of my old dolls; they were all my special friends. So, I decided I would give her the doll I had just gotten. It was a pretty doll with a yellow organdy dress. The Mother and little girl were so pleased to get a new doll and I was pleased that I didn't have to give up any of my old doll friends! Shirley Ann Kettwich Lutomski is my sister. She is 8 1/2 years younger than I am and I helped to take care of her by taking her for walks in the buggy. But I was like most other kids who wanted to play and not take care of my sister. I liked to go to play dolls with Harriet Memmen and Mom always wanted me to take my sister. I didn't want to. She was too little. In 1927 Mom and Dad and Uncle George and Aunt Minnie and Shirley and I decided to take a trip to visit relatives in Iowa. Dad had a new car and we set off on the highway. I don't know how we knew how to get there, whether we had road maps or just oral directions from the family. On the way we came to where they were changing the road from gravel to concrete and we had to drive along the top of the ditch and the car was leaning way over. Shirley and I were afraid the car was going to tip over and we would fall into the ditch. We cried and hollered and Dad got mad at us and told us to be quiet. When he spoke, we had to listen. We did make it safely back to the road again and got to Iowa for the visit. ~What did you do in the evening with no TV? To entertain ourselves as children, we played cards like rummy and Rook and board games like Pollyanna. Mom played the piano, Dad played the violin, I played the Hawaiian guitar and Shirley played the ukulele. We liked to all play together and have our own concert. We would visit people in the evening, We made popcorn. If there was work to do, we worked until dark. ~Where did you go to elementary school? The first school I went to was a one room school in the country. The school was not too far from my house. It was called Maple Grove Elementary, a country school. When I was about in the second grade a big boy from the 8th grade did something bad on the playground at recess. I don't remember what it was, but the teacher was going to punish him. At this time getting punished might mean getting your bottom hammered with a paddle and he wasn't going to hang around for that so he jumped out of the window and ran home. He probably got into more trouble by doing that. The usual thing was that if you got into trouble at school, you got into more trouble at home. Dad's farm was across the road from the school and during the winter the rains would fill that corner of our farm with water. We didn't have the tiles in the ground for drainage that they use now. When it got cold that water would freeze and we would have a pond for ice skating. During the noon recess we would put our ice skates on and skate on the ice. It was a lot of fun. At lunch time some friends and I would to out to the cob house and eat our lunch. The cob house was full of empty corn cobs that were used to fire the stove that kept the school room warm in the winter. We sometimes would trade lunches. I liked to trade with Lucille Lutchen. Her family was poorer than we were and she was not able to have meat sandwiches like I was. Her Mom fixed her pancakes, sugared and roiled up. They were a good treat. I attended this country school for about 3 1/2 years. Then we moved to town, Minonk. I hated school there because the kids there were not nice to me, a "country hick," from country school. I cried because I had to go to school. I missed my friends from country school. I kept telling my Mom that I didn't want to go to school. After awhile though, I made friends. My favorite subject in school was arithmetic. I liked solving the number problems. We had to wear dresses to school. No girls ever wore pants or shorts. We wore shoes and socks too. I did have a pair of overalls, though. Cliff Murray brought my Mom a pair of tiny overalls before I was born. I was supposed to be a little boy and he wanted to give the baby the first pair of overalls. ~Where did you go to high school? I went to Minonk Township High School in Minonk, Illinois. I attended all four years there and graduated in 1934. I took all the Arithmetic (math) classes that were offered. I thought I would like to some day teach math. That was not possible, however, as Mom and Dad couldn't afford to send me on to college. I liked to
write poetry when I was in high school. I had an English class where we
had to write poetry and I didn't get very
Ethel Wierman (she married a
Herman) & Eileen Kettwich
(R) We don't have any of the things we left behind in the high school. In 1935 the high school burned and all the things that were there were burned. That included my mother's wedding dress. Shirley had taken it to school to use it in a school play. We were upset about losing that dress. Not every town had a high school, and there was no bus to take farm children to a high school in a neighboring town. My cousin, Ethel Uphoff (Weirman) lived in Hudson, Illinois where there was no high school. Since she wanted to go on to college, she needed to go to high school somewhere so she could get a diploma. She came to live with us and went to school at Minonk High School, graduating in 1932. She later spent two years at Illinois State Normal University and got her license to teach. ~What special things to you remember about high school and what activities did you enjoy the most? I played
tennis on the high school tennis team and we played other small towns
around Minonk. I enjoyed the game and the travel to play other teams. My
friend, Edmona Henderson had a tennis court at her grandparent's home
behind the high school in Minonk and she would invite me to play after
school. We had a good time. It gave us both good practice.
After high
school I played baseball with a woman's team called the Dixie Gas Girls.
We were sponsored by the Dixie Gas Statton in Minonk. I played shortstop
and first base. I played with them about two or three
years. We attended the St. Paul's church in Minonk and we attended regularly. I was baptized and confirmed there. The Pastor was Reverend Paul Buchmueller. Pastor Buchmueller was a tall and stern man and preached sermons on Sunday nights in the German language, which most of his older parishoners understood. My God Parents for baptism were --- and when I was baptized I was only a baby. It was the responsibility of my God Parents to care for me if anything happened to my parents. The Church believed in the sprinkling of water on a baby's head and that little children are able to receive this gift of God's love and the new life much as adults are. Life was not without its dings either. One day I was going to go to Bloomington shopping for a dress with Don's sisters, Helen, Ruth, Lorna and Don's Mother, Jenny. Helen was going to drive Don's car, the tan Ford Model A. We all hopped in and started out. On the way we encountered a slow moving wagon filled with corn. Unfortunately, it was moving a lot slower than Helen was driving and "whomp," we hit that wagon. I slipped off the seat and my leg hit the choke knob and I ended up with a hole in my leg. Don ended up with a dent in his car and Helen got the dickens. We never did get to go shopping for the dress, and that hole is still in my leg. Another time the whole Sunday School went to the park for a picnic. One of the things we really enjoyed doing was playing baseball. On this particular day, it started to drizzle rain. The boys were still playing but I went back and sat away with the girls. Bud May was up to bat and he took a terrific swing at the ball, I guess he wanted to hit a home run. Well because his hands were a little wet and the bat was a little wet, it flew out of his hands, across the ball diamond to where I was sitting and hit me smack dab between the eyes. Helen had Don's car again and they put me in the car and headed to Dr. Millard's office. He took one look and started sewing with out freezing the cut first. Guess he got all excited too. My sister Shirley says she was afraid I was going to die. Maybe I thought so too. Anyway, I still have the scar to show for that debacle too. ~What did you decide to do after high school and why did you decide to do that? After high
school I went to work. I worked for the Minonk-News Dispatch in the
office. But on Fridays I would take the Mr.
Eileen
Kettwich A friend of my mother and dad offered to help me and loan me some money so I could go. It took some time for me to make enough money to pay her back because the charge to get your hair done was ony 25 cents. I lived a few blocks from the school and took classes morning and evening. I was able to take some extra time at lunch so I could work in a restaurant as a waitress and my lunch. It cost me $2.50 per week for my room in the upstairs of a private home. Just after high school graduation, I got a little beauty shop experience working for Marjorie Strauss in Minonk. I had been able to get a state a permit to work in her Salon. She charged $2.50 and $3.50 for a permanent. ~What special things happened during this beauty school experience? One day a lady came into the school and wanted a permanent. I was the only one in the class at this time that had some experience in giving perms, so the instructor asked if I would like to give the lady a perm. I said I would and started to wash her hair. Well, her hair would just glob up with the shampoo and wouldn't rinse. It was smeary and messy. I tried some more shampoo, but it did the same thing. I asked her if she had "color back" (dye) in her hair and she denied it. "I wouldn't put anything in my hair," she said. Well, since she wouldn't admit something was there, I went and got my instructor. She asked the lady, "Is there any "color back" in the hair?" "Of course not!", was the reply." Ok!" the instructor said, "Put a permanent in her hair." So, I did! What a surprise when we took the rods out of her hair. It was straight and there were different colors in her hair. I was floored and a little nervous, but I got the instructor and she came and looked. Well, she got busy getting all the girls (students) busy in front of all the mirrors, doing things to each others hair. Then she told me to take the lady where there wasn't a mirror. I set her hair in pin curls and styled it for her. We told her we didn't have a mirror for her to look into when she asked. She went home with her colors and her curls. Of course, when she washed her hair it was stick straight. She came storming back and the Instructor met her. The lady wanted another perm. When she came in, I disappeared. I didn't want another thing to do with her. One of the girls who needed some more experience with giving perms gave her the new perm. I stayed out of the way. After that experience, I decided I would never do hair coloring. When I had my own salon I did not do hair colorings.
Shirley, Eilert, Katie & Eileen
Kettwich The Polumpus family, who were Greek, owned the store and they made almost all of the things they sold, including all the makings of sandwiches. They made the candy, dipping their own chocolates. Tom Polumpus dipped the candy and he was very particular about the curl on the top. Tom once asked me to come and help him pull the taffy. So we went to the basement and he piled the taffy on the marble table and we pulled and turned it and pulled and turned it several times until it was just as he wanted it. That was the only time I got to help with that. I only worked there about six weeks and then I got my license and could now become a Beautician. They made ice cream in the back of the store using very large ice cream makers. Sometimes before the ice cream was solidly frozen Nick Polumpus, the other brother, would have me come back and give me some of the soft ice cream. They put their ice cream into rectangular boxes, and called them "bricks."The quart boxes were long rectangles and the half gallon boxes were wider but shorter. They did not use the round boxes like most ice cream makers use today. They made different flavors: chocolate, vanilla, strawberry. In the Fall the would make carmel apples. They made the most delicious taffy apples and people came from far and wide to buy them. They cost 15cents. Christmas time was a very special time for them. They make several kinds of candy canes, white with peppermint stripes, red with cinnamon stripes and white with green and red stripes. They also made "ribbon" hard candy which was a wide stripe of candy pushed up into humps and left to harden. They also made various kinds of hard candies. All of which were delicious! AND they made chocolate Santas. When you would walk into that store at the Christmas Holidays you would see the candy canes hanging on wires across the store and the glass cases were full of hard and chocolate Christmas candies. You could pick the candy cane you wanted. The smells in that store were indescribable and delicious. (I just loved going in there-Donaleen). Sometimes the boys in the group would come in and order a box of ice cream and some spoons. They would take it back to a booth and all of them would dig in. What a mess! Nick and Tom got tired of the sticky tables and mess and would not let them do that anymore. Soon I got
my license and left the Sweet Shop. I had an opportunity to go to Chicago
and work. That sounded exciting, but Mom did not think that was a very
good idea and suggested very strongly that I use a room in their house to
start my shop. So I did.
Our Life Together ~How did you meet Dad? Don and I didn't actually "meet". We ran around with the same group or people. Kids used to gather in groups similiar to what they do now and do things together. We would go skating in Minonk, to the movies, driving to Bloomington for burgers at the Steak and Shake or go to the parks in the area for a picnic. Helen, Don's sister, and I were good friends and I would go to their house with Helen and their Mom, Jenny, would ask me to stay for lunch. Once we were eating soup for lunch and Don told me I was slurping my soup. Actually, it was hot and I was sipping it carefully. Since we were in the same group of kids that ran around together, we just knew each other. Kids used to gather in groups similiar to what they do now and do things together. Don always had a car and we would go skating in Minonk and in Dana at the skating rinks, go to the movies, drive to Bloomington for burgers at the Steak and Shake or go to the parks in the area for a picnic. The Steakburger and the Shake together was 35 cents! Movies were a dime and popcorn a nickel. Roller skating with the skates furnished was only a quarter! Girls in my day, usually prepared a Hope Chest. We worked on embroidering dish towels and dresser scarves, we crocheted doilies for our buffets and tables. We made tablecloths and napkins~pillowcases and we collected those things we would need in our kitchens. We made the dish towels from old feed sacks. These were cloth bags that had been full of chicken mash. The sacks were good to use because they were soft and absorbent. I went to Visserings, a local mercantile store, and bought a bundle of them. I then had to wash and hem them and put an iron on picture in the corner. I would outline the picture with embroidery stitches. Some of the pictures had several different kinds of stitches in them. My Mom taught me how to crochet and at 88, I still like to crochet.
Donald & Eileen Meils The only people in attendance were our mothers, Don's mother, Jenny and my Mom, Katie. Aunt Etta played the organ for us and after the ceremony she prepared a dinner and we all ate together. Then we got in the car and headed north to Wisconsin. Robert Barth took everyone else back to Minonk. When we got back from Wisconsin, we had to stay with my Mom and Dad because we couldn't find a house to rent. We finally found one that was owned by a Miss Jenny Tammon, who was particular about who lived in her old house. It was a two story house but we only used the main floor. It had one bedroom down and two upstairs. There was a living room and a kitchen, We had bought enough furniture to furnish the kitchen and living room and we used the bedroom outfit I had at Mom and Dad's. The bathroom was out back. It was an outhouse. We bought a new coal stove to keep us warm and a cook stove to cook on. We lived
there from Oct 1937 to December of 1938. That Halloween, some friends of
Don thought they would be smarties and
Eileen
Meils We moved to a large house owned by Don's Grandfather. It was a 2 story house. We lived on the first floor and Don's sister Ruth and her husband Bill lived on the second floor for a while. That helped to pay the rent. After Grandpa died we had to move because the family wanted to sell the house for more money than we could afford to pay for it. Donaleen was an infant when we moved there. We moved to a tiny house that Grandpa owned. It had 2 mini bedrooms that barely held beds and a small living room and dining room where I had a beauty shop, and a kitchen. We remodeled the kitchen but the house was really too small. Don worked for his Uncle Gerhardt and I had the beauty shop. |
Donald Ira Meils
Herman Meils -
Grandfather
Fanny (Hair) Meils - Grandmother
Jenny (Leffers) Meils - Donald's
Mother
John D. Meils - Donald's Father
Our Years Together by Don Meils
Eileen’s Dad found us a house to rent for $10 a month and we lived there for about a year. It had water but not much else. We used an out house for a bathroom and had to buy a stove. We had a load of coal delivered for $4, and the next morning Mr. Hindert was there collecting from us. He wasn’t taking any chance on 2 newly-wed kids. We had to get some furniture for the house. Eileen had a bedroom outfit but we needed living room things. We went to Bloomington to Leath’s and bought $100 worth of furniture on credit. We got a chair, couch, 2 end tables, 3 lamps and a drum table. It cost us $10 and month and each month we made the trip to Bloomington to pay them the $10. I was still working for Uncle Gerhardt. In December, when I brought home a check for $8, Eileen said, “We can't live on that, you have to get a full time job that will support us”. Carpenters don’t work very much in Illinois in the winter because of the weather. So Eileen called Earl Morgenstern at the Sanitary Bakery in Minonk and asked if they had openings. She made an appointment for me and I met with Mr. Morgenstern and he gave me a job. I started on the delivery truck about a week later. At the time a loaf of bread was selling for about 6 1/2 cents to the store and two loaves for 15 cents in the store. The package of Danish rolls were 12 cents to the store and 15 cents to the customer. I went to work at 4:30 in the morning and usually got home about 5:00 in the afternoon. I then had to check in with my money and order my load for the next day. It was a very long day. And in the evening after I had eaten dinner and read the paper, I took a nap before bedtime. I remember one day on the route, I was driving a small truck and some of my bread had to be put in a rack on top of the truck. A strong wind was blowing and one of the boxes of bread flew off. I didn’t know it right away and by the time I discovered it and went back for it, someone else had found it and it was long gone. I enjoyed being a retail salesman. I was on my own and I enjoyed interacting with people. I had fun. The bakery route was fine and we managed to pay all our expenses and save money to buy our own house. I got a percentage over what was expected of me. Some weeks I made as much as $35 which was good money in those days. I made money for us and money for the bakery. One day I came home with a new gun and I paid for it with bakery money. Eileen then had to count the pennies at home and find money to replace the bakery money. She had to scramble a bit, but she managed to find all I needed. I went through all kinds of weather on that bread route. Winter was the worst. On a winter day it started to snow as I went into Decatur. I made all the stores and the weather got worse and worse. By the time I got back to Bloomington it was a full blown blizzard and I couldn’t go any farther. My sister, Helen, lived in Bloomington then so I knocked on her door and stayed overnight at her house. I made sure my family knew where I was and that I was safe. I got up the next morning and went back to Minonk where I checked in and reloaded the truck and headed back out on the road to deliver that day’s bread to the stores. In the fall of 1938, we were expecting our first child. We were having a problem trying to decide what to name that child. We
World War II was continuing in the early 1940’s and I got my draft notice to report. Earl Morgenstern found out and since he had lost so many drivers to the war effort, he went to the Draft Board and explained that he needed men to deliver bread to stores. The Board then granted a deferment, the job and having 2 children all were taken into consideration. I worked for Morgenstern at the bakery for about 16 years. Then, things were getting very competitive in the bread market and his son, Jim Sample decided to go house to house selling bread. I didn’t want to do that very much so I looked for something else. One day I met Don Stith in the store and asked him about Archway. He said there was one route still available. I talked with Elmer Starter and he got the route for me.
In 1965, we built a new house in the northeast part of Minonk. It had 4 bedrooms and another huge garage for storing the cookies. By now the routes had grown and we needed a large storage area for the cookies and the big walk in truck. In 1979, I retired. We moved to Florida to live where is wasn’t so cold. We had been going there for several years in the winter and liked it. Each fall we would pack up and head south with our little camper trailer. It was a hassle to drag that thing back and forth, so we found a park for it and then left it over the summer. In 1988, we decided to move to Florida permanently and found a lovely mobile home in a very nice park. That is where we are living as I finish this story. Eileen and I have been married for 66 years and I am 90 years old. I have some arthritis in my back but I am still working with my hobby of woodworking. I have made toys and yard art for my children, grandchildren and great grand children. I have 3 children, 6 grandchildren and 5 great grandchildren. My life has been long and lovely.
Reminiscences of Donald Ira Meils My mother was Jennie Leffers, who was born in 1892. She had four siblings, Conrad, who died in infancy, Gerhart, Peter and Etta. Jenny was the oldest of five children. They all lived in a little house in Minonk, Illinois.
Her Mother was Heinrich Bonk Leffers. “Henny” was born in the States but her parents emigrated from Germany. Grandma Henny was a housewife and Mother. Jenny’s father was Henry Leffers. Mr. Leffers became a carpenter. He was living in Germany just before World War I. The Kaiser expected all young men to serve in the Army. Grandpa Henry didn't want any part of that, so he left Germany and went to England. There he joined the English Navy and served on several ships. He was not happy in the English Navy and when the war started, he came to the U.S. to live. My father was John Donald Meils, born in 1888. He had four siblings, Dick, Robert, Franklin and Edith. John was the first born of the five children. His father was Herman Meils and his mother was Fanny Hair Meils. John was born in Nebraska, where his dad was a farmer. This was the
Family lore has it that when John was a tot in Nebraska, he met a large rattle snake in the garden of his parents home. He thought it would be nice to feed the snake a meal. Lucky for him, his Mom noticed his attempt at kindness and killed the snake instantly. Where would all of us be had John died of a rattlesnake bite? Jenny and John settled in Minonk in a large home on 6th Street, at the corner of Lincoln. It was a small house but Grandpa Herman remodeled and added the second story with 3 or 4 additional bedrooms and a summer kitchen. My Grandmother Meils was an excellent cook and I can remember her delicious roast beef and gravy with mashed potatoes. One of my very favorite meals. John and Jenny were not highly educated and I think they completed school through the 8th grade. John was a bright, active “happy-go-lucky” man and owned and operated a mercantile store. He worked as a salesman and other interesting jobs to support his family. He was active in local politics and served as a County Supervisor for Woodford County. Jenny had much common sense and successfully raised seven children as a housewife and mother. My Grandpa Herman owned a grocery store in Minonk and my Dad, John, worked there. Grandpa Herman would take out the Huxter Wagon, a wagon filled with things from the store and go through the country side selling them to the farmers in the area. John would then work in the store in town. Later, John took over his Dad’s (Herman’s) store. My mother, Jenny, worked as a clerk in that store. We are all assuming that is how they met. Jenny often said that she kept the store and John pitched the baseball. (He played on the local Minonk team, traveling around to towns in the area playing other focal teams.) They married in 1913. After they married she no longer worked. John later sold that store. Following their wedding they moved into a little house on Lincoln Street about 3 houses south of the 6th Street corner. This house was rather primitive, with only a living room, kitchen and 2 bedrooms. The bathroom was a little outhouse in the back and when the family took baths it was in the tub in the middle of the kitchen. There was no electricity and fight was from kerosene lamps on tables. Mom, Jenny, cooked on a big cook stove.
We lived in that little house in Minonk until I was about 5 or 5 1/2. Dad worked for W.B. Uphoff in the mercantile store. They sold farm implements, harnesses, horse blankets, tools and cream separators and a host of other things that were needed for everyday small town living. Dad left the store and went to work for the Martin Senour Paint Company. I am not sure why, maybe to make a little more money. He had a sales route in Michigan and wasn’t home much. I can remember that he had 2 or 3 big cases of paint samples that he carried with him on the train. They were very heavy cases. One of the stories Dad told about working in Michigan had to do with the very cold weather. He was in a store in his territory, the “thumb” or Michigan, talking with the owner about carrying the line of Martin Senour Paint and the gentleman commented on the dark grey sky. He told Dad it was going to snow. Dad looked at the sky and felt the cold and decided he had better find a warm place to stay that night. Sure enough, the snow began to fly and the wind began to blow. However, he was snug and warm in his room for the night grateful that he was not trudging through the snow looking to catch the train. I remember some things that happened while we lived in that house. One morning, Dad was going to start a fire in the stove to warm up the house and get ready for breakfast and the smoke came back into the house. There was a fluttering noise in the chimney and we could hear a bird flying about in the chimney. Dad had to put the fire out, get the bird out and start all over again making the fire. That bird probably never roosted in a chimney again! I had roller skates, when I was about four. I loved skating around the neighborhood. These were skates that fastened onto our shoes. There were clamps that snugged up to the sole of our shoe in the front that were tightened with a “skate key” and the shoe fit into a brace at the back of the skate. A strap went over your foot at the ankle and when tightened, kept the skate on your foot. Sometimes you would get a painful blister on your ankle from that strap. No inline shoe skates were available at that time. Jenny’s brother, Uncle Gerhardt Leffers, made us a wren house. We hung the wren house in a tree. It was only a couple of days until we had a resident in that house and it sang for us every day. Monday was wash day at most homes and ours was no different. Mom would get out the boiler big tubs for boiling the clothes to get them clean. We didn’t have Spray and Wash to treat the dirt and stains. She would boil the clothes and then put them into a wooden washing machine on the back porch. It had a handle on the side and a foot pedal and you had to operate both at the same time to make the agitator work. The soap that she used was probably homemade from animal fat and lye. Clothes were rung out and put into the tubs for rinsing. The clothes we had were not wash and wear, they were wash and iron. Tuesday was ironing day. The clothes would be sprinkled and roiled to dampen them and than the irons would be put on the stove to heat and when they were hot, Mom (Jenny) would iron the clothes. My sisters, Helen and Ruth. and I were all born in while we lived in house. To keep us all in clothing, my Mother Jenny
We didn't have any TV or electronic games. We had to make our own entertainment. I don’t remember being bored because I was always busy doing something. Playing outside, making up games and things to do. I really liked to read and play with my wind-up train when we had to be inside. The girls played with their dolls. I could play the harmonica and the girls played the piano. We made and ate popcorn. We put the corn into a wire basket with a hinged lid and a long handle. We then put that over the hot stove and the popcorn got hot and popped inside that basket. We put some salt and butter on it and ate it. I was probably about 4 or 5 when I got a pedal car with 2 pedals. It was metal and had a steering wheel and a little gas tank on the back. I really loved that little car. It was a pretty little thing. Then Helen came along and Uncle Gerhart Leffers took the gas tank off the back and built a seat facing backward for Helen. You couldn’t pedal the car with the extra weight back there and I wasn’t very happy that he did that anyway, so I just said the heck with it and didn’t play with it very much anymore. I didn’t like that she was on my car. It was mine. I got it for Christmas and he shouldn’t have messed with my car! I had a coaster sled, a Flexible Flyer. That is a sled where you run down the road with it and throw it on the snowy ground, flop on it and get a ride. If you are on a hill you can go for a long ways. There was a hill by our house and I would run, flop on the sled and, sometimes, because the sled was almost impossible to steer, I would run into trees or curbs or ditches. I got lots of bumps and bruises this way. One day a friend of Dad’s, Mr. Matheny, was at the store talking with Dad and I about rabbits and how to catch them. He said he would make me a rabbit trap and we could catch rabbits. He made long box with a door at the one end. The door was operated by a trigger mechanism so when the rabbit entered for the carrot or bait inside the box, he would hit the trigger, a little notched peg that was sticking through the box that caught on the top of the box by the notch, knocking it loose. The peg was attached to the door by a string and the door would fall down and he would be trapped in the box. We tried but never did catch any rabbits. We decided that it was because the other end was wood and the rabbit couldn’t see through the trap. Later on, I made one of these for my own kids. It had screen on the end. I don’t remember catching any rabbits with that one either. I guess the rabbits were too smart! Our Christmas celebrations were a little different from what they are now. When we lived in Maroa, we all went off to church on Christmas Eve. It was a big celebration and all the children Of the Sunday School had to say a “Piece” and participate in singing or a play. After all the Sunday School children had finished their parts, and the service had ended the teachers gave us a sack of candy and we all went home. We went home to see what Santa had left. When I was young, we didn’t have Christmas trees - not until later. Not many people had Christmas trees back then but Santa did come. While we were off at church, the neighbors would come and put our gifts out. Morn and Dad had hidden them somewhere. One year the neighbors forgot a gift, Helen’s, I think, and Dad went to the phone and “called” Santa Claus and said, “Now look here, Santa you forgot one of our gifts. We need you to bring that gift here.” Well, Santa explained that he had mistakenly put the gift into the closet or something like that and the missing was found. Dad loved to do things like that. John was a good story teller and wonderful Dad. He played with us and sometimes brought us candy when he came home from his traveling jobs. We didn’t see a lot of him because he traveled so much. He would bring the bag of candy and we passed it all around and when we all had gotten some, Mom would take the bag and say to us, “We’ll keep the rest of this and have some more tomorrow.” It would only be a 25 cent bag, but it was a lot of candy. Before I was 6, maybe 5 1/2 we moved to Moroa. Dad and Uncle Ben Meils had a Mercantile Store there. They sold windmills, horse blankets and harnesses. The store burned down. There was a Presbyterian Church in town and Dad preached a sermon one Sunday when the minister was gone. They knew Dad’s background. He attended classes and Bible Studies. He almost became a preacher. He had a good background in the Bible and filled in for Preacher from time to time. Down the Street just past our house was the Interurban Decatur, Clinton to Peoria. All you had to do was flag the motorman down and he would stop and you would pay him for the trip to where you wanted to go. He would stop and pick up milk cans for the farmers. An electric machine ran from an overhead trolly. At the last house in Maroa there was an underpass and Route 51 went under there. It was low and a big old rain would fill the area under the overpass. The Interurban couldn’t get through, so they would bring a string of Interurban cars and push them through the water. People could then walk through the cars to the other side and continue their trip. We moved next to a family named Rolofson - a family of grown up brothers and sisters. When we moved in and they saw there were kids in the family they weren’t comfortable about that. They sort of ignored us so we wouldn’t bother them. They didn’t want kids messing in their “stuff”. Mom warned us not to “go there and cause any trouble.” Then once we went to Minonk on the train to visit and there they were, at the station and they talked and talked - they talked up a storm. That seemed really strange to me because in Maroa they wouldn’t even talk to us. This house had a big barn outside in the back of the house and it had 2 big doors on it. One night we were having a storm with lots of wind and the doors were banging. Dad told me to go out and close and fasten the doors to keep them from breaking. I was scared and didn’t want to go out so I just told Dad that I closed them. The next morning the doors were still banging. Dad was upset with me. He sat me down and told me that “we didn’t say we did things and not do them.” I felt bad that I had told Dad a fib. When we moved to the house in Maroa, they put a motor on the washing machine. Mom didn’t have to crank it by hand anymore. She would put the clothes into the hot soapy water in the machine and it would agitate the clothes back and forth. There was a ringer on the machine; a rectangular box with 2 rollers inside. When you turned the crank on the outside and put the clothes in between the rollers you could squeeze out the soapy water. Usually you would roll the clothes into another tub of clear, clean water for rinsing out the soap. Sometimes there would be another tub of clean water for a second rinse and you would put the clothes through the ringer again for that and then through a 3rd time to get them dry enough to put into the basket and hang them outdoors on the clothesline. That was a rope or a wire strung between 2 posts and you would have wooden clothes “pins” to push over the clothes to keep them on the line. Wash day was a real work day and took a lot of time. Mom also got a new stove to cook on. It was a Universal cook stove and was all in Chrome and Dark Blue enamel. This was a stove that burned coal, cobs or wood inside of it for cooking heat. I remember it so well because it was so pretty. We had electirc lights in this house. The city of Maroa owned the electric company. It was DC or direct current. There was a simple socket and bulb hanging from the ceiling on a wire and a switch on the wall. When you pushed the white button the light went on. When you pushed the dark button the light went off. It was such a wonderful thing! Dad and Uncle Ben worked together in the store for a couple of years. Then Uncle Ben decided to move to Wisconsin and buy a dairy farm and that left Dad with the store. Dad sold windmills, horse blankets, harnesses, cream separators and stuff like that. Dad took “notes,” or IOU’s, from the farmers when they came to buy things and when they sold the crops, they would pay their “notes”. Well, in 1922, things got bad, sort of a mini depression, and the farmers got little money from crops. That meant Dad was stuck with the “notes” because the farmers couldn’t pay them off. Dad told me once that he was so worried about these notes that he couldn’t sleep nights. He had to work to pay them off himself. It took a long time but he got the job done. This was a very difficult time for Mom and Dad (John and Jenny). Paying off debts of others and trying to raise a family was very hard on the family. On Thursday nights, probably in the summer, the Conover Military Band came to town and gave a Concert in the park. We would go to listen and I would walk around down town for a while and then go back to the store. There was a pile of horse blankets under the counter and I would lay clown there and go to sleep. I can vaguely remember Dad closing the store and picking me up, throwing me over his shoulder, still dozing, and taking me home, where he would undress me and put me to bed. Listening to a concert was hard work. Dad finally sold the store and went to Decatur and got a job working at the Wabash Rail Road roundhouse. That is where train engines were taken for repairs. The work was hard and dangerous with all the heavy machinery and his family was very worried about him and his safety. They convinced him to leave that job and he went to work for Baker Brothers. He sold groceries and coffee to stores. The Toluca people bought a lot of fruit for making wine. It was the time of prohibition, meaning no alcoholic beverages could be sold but they could make some of their own and they did. Dad did such a good job selling the fruit he began to give Illinois Fruit and Produce, another company, a difficult time because they couldn’t sell as much. So they offered him a job. He went to work for them. There was some kind of a problem with the owner of Illinois Fruit, and Dad got fired. He then went back to Minonk to work for Uncle Gerhart H. Leffers in the lumber yard and he sold building products to contractors and home do-it yourselfers. With Dad having to move with jobs, we either didn’t see him much or we were always changing schools. Growing up that way is very difficult. I remember I didn’t want to go to school but Mom put me in school at age 5 1/2, which was early. Most kids didn’t go until 6 or later. I started first grade in Maroa. I had a fussy old school marm who was very finicky about how we lined up. I guess I remember that because I got into trouble for not lining up right. She carried a switch with her and if you weren’t lining up right she would wack your legs with the switch. The school was a big square building and Clay Dine was the janitor. We played Fox and Goose at recess. That is a game played in the snow. Kids would make a big circle in the snow with a line across the center of the circle with a little circle in the center of this line. The “Fox” started here. The rest of the kids would walk the circumference of this circle; they were the “Geese”. When the “Fox” said “Run Geese Run, all the kids in the “print” of the circle would run and the Fox would leave his “home” and chase them. The “Geese” could only run on the path of the circle. The “Geese” he caught were out. It was a fun game for little kids to play. I remember once when the fire alarm went off for a fire arm. I didn’t know what was happening and I was scared to death. But, just did what all the other kids did and it turned out ok. In school I really liked reading and spelling. I did really good with these. We also had Civics that was city government, Orthography that was words and meanings, and Writing, Arithmetic and History. I guess I did Ok as I passed from grade to grade. I went to schools in several different towns as we moved several times. I went to Marca, Dana and then Minonk H.S. I remember I was in a school play called Tom Thumb. I had to sing a song to a girl. It was put on by the PTA or something like that. I always wore knickers and long socks with a blousy shirt to school. I had to dress nicely. We always wore shoes and socks. For play I liked to wear bib overalls. Uncle Frank gave me my first pair of bibs. The third house we moved to in Maroa was a very large house with a long staircase. It had 8 rooms, and 4 bedrooms. It was 2 stories and had a big long staircase. I remember that Mom fell down about 15 steps in that house while she was carrying Lorna. Everyone was very worried about Mom and the baby but it all turned out ok. Mom was a very strong person. We were always sent to the neighbors when a new baby was coming. We didn’t know what was going on but every time we came home there was a new baby! Mom always stayed in bed 9 days after having a baby and Grandma Fanny Meils came to help out.
Eileen wanted to get married but I didn’t think I had enough money. She did. We finally did We went to Kankakee. We had $40 and went to Michigan (Wisconsin?] had our first time together and spent $20. Grandpa found us a house for $10 a month. It had water. We lived there for a year then moved to G. Meils’ house for $30. He said Don you can have the house but we didn’t take his offer and then he passed away and now they were going to sell the house so we had to move. He had a second little old house so we bid for it and got it for $1600. Our first home had a stove and we bought a ton of coal for $4. Hindert of the coal yard came the next day for his money. He wasn’t going to take chances on newly wed kids. He wanted the cash. We went to Bloomington for furniture and bought a $100 worth. We got a chair, a settee, sofa lamps and tables on credit. We paid $10 a week each month. When the war was going on we were doing well. The kids had toys and stuff. We lived 16 years in the Maple Avenue house. We added on a garage for the Archway cookie truck and inventory and put a coal stoker in. We removed a wall from the front room and Eilie built new kitchen cupboards. I eventually bought a bigger truck and needed more space, so we built a new house by the football field in 1965 for $26,000. We had a nice big garage that accommodated the cookie truck and inventory. The kids were grown up and gone, and Realtor Bob Morrison suggested we sell it to a young couple who came along, which we did and we moved to Florida. |
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