"THIS OLD HOUSE"-Nebraska Memories

RAMBLINGS OF GRANDMA RITA
Life Lessons
To my grandkids with love
November, 2007

“THIS OLD HOUSE”(1927-1945)

There is so much I want to tell you about life on the farm where I lived for my first eighteen years. It’s location was eight and a half miles south of Wauneta, NE There was about 160 acres of farm land, a barn, tool shed, garage, hen house, brooder house (for baby chicks0--- and then there was our house.

Let’s start by telling you about “This Old House”.

Of course it was the hub of family life.. With your great grandpa and grandma (Ralph and Nellie Miller) and six kids living there we kept things lively. The house was quite large but not LARGE like you are thinking. In earlier years a part of it had been the Calvert post office. Back a couple of generations this farm had been homesteaded by my great grandparents..

There were two bedrooms upstairs and one downstairs--with one bathroom, living room, dining room, kitchen, front and back porch, and a large basement. I know right now that you are picturing it by today’s standards. Well, not exactly.. This is what I want to tell you about.

:Let’s begin with the kitchen. Picture your kitchen without running water. The closest water was a cistern outside with a hand pump.. Below was a well that amply supplied the whole farm. That water was pulled up by a windmill, that channeled it in to the well. Passers by on the road to town would stop by in the summer for a cool drink from our well.

One of the chores for the kids was to keep the water bucket filled. On Saturday night, bath night, it was a bigger job as the boiler (large tub) had to be filled with water and put on the stove to heat for the family baths. I’ll tell you more about that when we get to the bathroom.

The cooking stove was fueled by corn cobs and wood and sometimes coal--this was another job for the kids.. We were to keep the wood box and coal bucket filled. There my mom put out delicious meals for us as well as for many guests. There was no going out to eat with friends or relatives. You invited them in. Usually this happened on Sunday after church, but other times hired help or a neighbor would drop in and be invited to stay for dinner.

The cooking stove was not only for cooking but also a form of heat. That was nice in the winter and not so nice in the summer. It looked just like you may have seen in Norman Rockwell pictures. A warming oven above, then the top of the stove for cooking. To one side was the reservoir which was a tank that held water and was warmed automatically from the heat of the stove. And then there was the oven.

The bread that my mom turned out from that stove oven could have taken first prize anywhere. I can smell the aroma even as I write this.. Many times the timing was perfect. Those beautiful warm light brown loaves were baked and cooled just in time for us to have a slice with homemade butter when we arrived home from school. We would be so hungry and it tasted sooooooooooooooo good. Sometimes we would get to have homemade muskmelon (cantaloupe) preserves, tomato preserves or our all time favorite--chokecherry jam. The only other things in the kitchen were a table which seated about six and the cupboard


The bathroom was a small room just large enough for a bathtub and small chest of drawers. The toilet was outside commonly known as an out-house! The only time we spent in the bath room was on Saturday night. All of us got a scrubbing in preparation for church on Sunday. Often the same water was used for two or three kids.. As I mentioned, our bathwater was heated on the kitchen stove so we had to use it sparingly to last for all of us. This room was not heated except on Saturday so through the week it might be used for a temporary pantry for one of mom‘s famous whipped cream cake!

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Next to the kitchen was the dining room. It was heated with a typical coal burning pot-bellied stove. We often sat around it with our feet on the coal bucket to keep toasty and warm. On one side of the room was a stand with a small Zenith radio which daddy listened to when he was in the house. It was our connection to the world outside of Dundy County. Only a few stations came in clear. I remember getting an Omaha station and WHO Des Moine, IA.

Mom (your Great Grandmother) had her Singer Sewing Machine in this room (treadle of course). She was an excellent seamstress and delighted in ripping up an old coat and making it into a coat for one of us. She prided herself in her sewing saying that her creations looked like they were “store bought“. She made dresses for all four of her girls. In later years when they were no longer on the farm, she made drapes professionally.

Of course, there was a dining room table for us and the many guests that were entertained. The best fried chicken dinners were consumed around that table. Dessert on a Sunday might have been my mom’s white whipped cream cake that just melted in your mouth!


Next, as you go through French Doors you will be in the Living Room. A nice sofa and chair and piano were the items of furniture. This room didn’t get much use except when we had company or when we played on our upright piano. Sometimes we could coax daddy to get his guitar out and play and we would sing along.. We were in it more in the summer as it was the coolest room in the house.

There were two bedrooms upstairs. Nebraska winters were fierce especially when the wind was howling outside. Sometimes we would take a “hot water bottle” or a jug that was filled with hot water to keep warm in bed. There was no heating in these two rooms except the warmth from the downstairs stoves.

Behind the door of one of the rooms you would find stored a number of hundred pound sacks of flour that daddy brought home during wheat harvest. He would trade a load of wheat for eight or ten sacks of flour at the flour mill. This was used mostly for baking.

The old house is gone now. When the farm was sold our neighbors bought it. They were only interested in the land. No one lived in the house after that. Gradually the buildings deteriorated and when my brother Ed was back there several years ago he said there wasn’t anything left.

Thinking through the rumblings and tumblings that went on in this house I think of my life now. What contrast! Here I am in Mesa, AZ in a Condo that provides all the comforts that I can imagine. All I have to do is click this, push this button or that switch and I have heat, lights, electrical appliances, water etc.

However, most of you too will look back someday to realize the deteriorization of your stuff that you worked so hard to accumulate and you will realize that it is all only temporary. At the end of our lives we realize that much of our things that we think are important last only for a short time and then are gone! The two things that are eternal are people and the Word of God! That is what will be important as we face our Creator God.

Our family was poor if you go by today’s standards. But we didn’t know it. We never went hungry and we always had beds (lumpy ones) to sleep in. and always kept warm in the winter. We had each other. Our social lives were satisfied with school, church, and community activities. It was a good life.

My love to all of you and my prayers are with you,