Evelyn Schweinhagen Oral History

Wallpaper Interview, Feb. 8, 2002 Henry County Senior Center Evelyn Schweinhagen by Charlotte Wangrin

There's a lot of things, you know . . .I grew up on a farm and I was used to ... Whatever we had to do we done. My mother and I canned a lot of things, then in the wintertime we did our own meat curing, you know. A lot of people complained about the depression but I can't say it was all that bad.

C: Well, you had a home and you had plenty of food.

Yeah and we went to church and Sunday School every Sunday. That was the way of life for us. On Sunday lot of times when you came home from church you invited somebody home you know to visit. That's the way we done it.

C: Did you have chicken? How did you mother kill it? Chop the head off?

Chopped the head off. I can remember--we always ate a lot of chicken at home. But Dad wouldn't let us cook the real young ones. I remember (laugh) one day we was out in the chicken coop, my Mom and I, we seen one that was big enough, chopped its head off, plucked the feathers put it in cold water, and fried it for supper. When the men came in for supper my Dad Said, "Well what green chicken did you cook now?" But it weighed 2 or 2 1/2 lbs. We always laughed about that.

We never had any problems. Everything just went along. We always played cards on Sunday evenings. There were just four of us, you know.

We made everything. My mother made all my clothes you know.

C: Did you have any hucksters come to your home?

Oh yes, the gypsies stopped. They'd come about 6 or 7 o'clock and would want to stay all night. But Dad wouldn't let them stay all night. They smoked you know. We wuz afraid of them. People said they stole kids. You always had that feeling but Dad stayed out in the barnyard till they drove away.

C: What did their carts look like?

Just like a wagon with canvas sides and a roof over the top. They'd always be dressed in their costumes. Full skirts, the women, regular tops. Some of them were kind of surly, you know. When we wouldn't let them stay they'd say we'd be hexed but we didn't believe in that stuff. We only had them that one summer. They'd go past, I suppose because they knew we wouldn't let them stay. But my Dad said we couldn't let them. They'd want to build a fire, especially if it was raining, and with all that hay they just couldn't.

We had a lot of livestock. Had 12 or 14 cows. Milked them by hand. Went back in the field and brought them up to the barn. In the summer when we had a lot of work to do we'd just let them stay in the barnyard and milk them right there. When we had little chicks Mom always fed them sour milk. When Dad fed milk we didn't use, he'd give it to the hogs.

C. My sister and I visited our grandmother for a couple weeks in the summer ...

We always had a great big garden, raised everything. Used animal fertilizer. Nobody bought anything unless he absolutely had to . We had a big strawberry patch. That wasn't so much fun to pick all the time.

I can remember I might have been 6 or 7. Ladies would come out from town. I got a nickel a quart for them. Them days it was different, you know. Green beans, they'd buy them. We always called them the city ladies. We never thought much about it but a lot of them thought they had more than farmers.

But we didn't think much of it. When it came Christmas time we made all our own candies. All kinds of cookies. Marshmallows, peppermints, fudge. I got the recipes. I baked for other people later. It was good, but you couldn't do it now. They'd be on your neck.

My brother and I would get a little rough with each other once in a while and all Dad had to do was say "Harrison Junior" and "Evelyn Belle" and we knew from his tone that that was enough. We'd have to play something else. He never had to spank us. We knew. We always made popcorn balls.

Had a Halloween Party at school, but didn't celebrate Halloween otherwise.

Walked a mile and a quarter to walk. It was a little harder for my older brother but I listened when he was studying and learned a little before I went to school. We didn't have electricity, you know, but when it cam 7 o'clock Mom would say it was my bedtime, then she'd take the kerosine lamp and hold it till I got up the stairs and in bed. I'd yell down, then she'd take it.

When it got really cold Mom would sometimes take a hot water bottle upstairs and put in our beds. But we didn't mind the cold. We didn't need blanket, slept in sheets. Didn't mind that cause we had comforters, you know.

I learned at an early age to help make them. Sometimes women came in to help and sometimes my Mom and I'd quilt 'em out, you know, and sometimes my Dad and Harrison'd help. We'd kid each other a lot. He'd always say, "Is this one going on Evelyn's bed?" Mom'd say "Why?" Harrison'd say, "Well I'm going to make the stitches big enough so her toes get caught." (laughs) Oh I don't know. I used to drive horses when they made hay.

C. Told about taking ginger tea to hayers. We didn't have peach trees but we'd get them from someone in Defiance. Mom and I'd can about at least 100 quart of peaches a year.

Used washboiler. That's what Morn and Dad used to heat water in when they wanted to do laundry.

C. Was it big?

Oh yeah. It was big. We'd always put a rack in the bottom so the cans wouldn't break. And then we'd put ‘em in there. . . . Had a cook stove. The reservoir was on one end of the stove. Don't know how many gallons it held but it always had warm water it with the stove being hot all day. Whoever emptied the reservoir they had to be sure and fill it up. So it'd be ready for next time.

C: Washtub to take baths in?

Washtub and then we washed on a board. Homemade soap. I still make some if I have enough grease.

C. How did you make it?

I've got all them recipes wrote down at home but I don't have it here. My Dad got a little shaver and it'd shave it all up in little strips so they'd dissolve in the wash water. My daughters use it in the automatic washers.

We had like troughs made so it'd set a certain size then Mom could cut it.

C. That really got things clean too.

I never had automatic I always had a wringer type washer.

C. I still have a cake of homemade soap for really stubborn stains.

Nowadays you have to use so many different things to wash. I just grew up with all that stuff and didn't think anything about it. I remember one time a couple women from Defiance stopped in and watched us making it. They thought it was funny. My Mom said if they'd wait just a bit till it got set up she'd cut them a cake apiece. She cut out a generous piece. They took it home and they got to making soap too. It wasn't that hard to stir up.

I know some people when their stove ashes they had ‘em in a barrel they'd put water over them to make lye but Pa said we bought the lye cause he knew it'd make good soap. I don't make it anymore.

I'd give my granddaughter 12 cans of black raspberry jelly. Tried to substitute grape but her little little girl said, "That's not great-grandma's jelly!" I helped her can peaches. Once they ran out and she cut up store peaches but the little boy said, "These aren't like great-grandma's.' We had about 20 acres of wood on the farm where we lived and there was a lot of black raspberry bushes in it. The kids like to ride down there and pick 'em. My second son always ate as much as he put in the basket. When he got thru he'd have a raspberry ring around his mouth. So they always called him King Raspberry. (laugh) We'd pick em in the woods instead of buying them.

When I was 14 I needed a dress. Mom had a plum-colored suit. This was in the fall after the crops was in, you know. Course the kids in school knew my Mom had been sick and when I come to school with a brand-new dress on. . You know how they used to have what they called frogs, a design you put on a dress? Made out of braid? They wanted to know where I got the dress. Finally one girl said, "Well why don't you really tell us who sewed your dress?" I said, "My Dad." She cut it out, helped with the pattern. She done most of the sewing, you know, but he got so he'd help out. They wouldn't believe it was my Mom so I told 'em. I was happy with that dress. It had long sleeves, you know.

I got confirmed. There was 3 of us girls, the rest boys. The other two girls their mom's went to town and bought dresses. We had a hired girl who'd come and help a few days at a time. When my Dad asked her if she'd come up and make me a dress for Confirmation. She said sure she'd come up. She asked about the material and he said they'd get it. So she did. When we went to get to get our pictures taken the minister's wife thought I didn't have a new dress so when we went to Napoleon to take the picture she was looking the dresses over. She said, "My goodness, who made your dress?" The other two women--they just couldn't get over that my Dad got that material and Mom made that dress. I don't know how much they'd spent for the white dresses their girls had.

I had two boys and a girl. When they needed an overcoat we made them.

C. (her sister's graduation dress). What did children do at recess at school?

Some played tag, some played ball. We had about a 15-20 minute recess. The school had a merry-go-round built that you had to push it, you know, and oh, some played hop-scotch, and the boys of course they played marbles, and sometimes they played mumbly-peg. They tossed their knives somehow.

C. Did you play 'Red Rover, Red Rover'?

"Send someone over." But I don't know how they played it.

C. Did you throw a ball or something over the house?

That was 'Ante-eye-over.' Threw over the top of the building. Ones on the other side had to catch it. You choose up sides for Red Rover. One person had to go over to the other side. They didn't throw a ball.

A couple years ago a lady said she wished she knew some kind of game her kids could play out in the snow. I said, 'Fox and Geese.' She said, "What's that?" You made a big circle path in the snow and then cut it like a pie. You had to stay in one of those paths. Whoever was ‘It' tried to catch them. You could run in one of those paths to get away but if you got caught you were ‘It'. We always had a lot of fun playing it.

Made angels in the snow. One of the neighbors had a crick run thru that place and some of the kids played hockey. But about the first time I tried it I got hit in the ankle and that was enough hockey for me.

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