Guest Blog: This entry is actually written by my Grandmother, Garnet Schermer. This is a short memoir of hers that I found with their stuff as we were going through albums and so forth from their old house before they moved into the nursing home. They’re still both quite alive, but we’ve gone and split up old pictures, documents, etc. now since they have no other place to store them — so now their family is storing their memories for them. I decided to retype the memoir here for all my readers to see — it’s rather fascinating about how their life went, or at least I think so. Nothing extraordinary but nnoetheless interesting. I have cleaned up a bunch of the spelling and grammar of the original writing, but the words and sentence structures I have left intact.

Edward and Garnet on the Move

Our first home when we were married, December 19, 1939, was two rooms on the east side of Grandpa and Grandma Schermer’s house. There were two arches that separated the livingroom and diningroom. They filled them in with plywood and their livingroom became our kitchen and their bedroom became our diningroom/bedroom. We also had one large closet and that was our house.

Edward’s folks gave us a beautiful white wood cook stove that they purchased at Kolb Hardware in Latimer. Mr. Kolb was generous enough to also give us an Aladdin lamp with that purchase. That was the most elite lamp yuo could buy at the time; by the way, we still have that lamp. My folks gave us a dining room set that they purchased at Sorenson’s Furniture in Latimer. As you can see, Latimer was a thriving town at that time. There was a doctor, dentist, lumber yard, two grocery stores, barber, bank, creamery, two elevators, and other businesses as well. At that time we bought a breakfast set, cupboard, linolium rug, and we were ready to keep house. The studio couch opened to a bed, so hence — our bedroom.

At that time we were hired man [sic] for Grandpa Schermer. We were paid fifteen dollars a month in the winter and twenty-five dollars a month during seed time and harvest.

Lurlin was born while we lived here. In the fall of 1941 we went to work for Carl Herman whose place was a mile north of where we lived. He wanted to retire but still have all the income from the farm. We had cows to milk, hog chores, all the field work to do, but we had our own house and we could have one hundred chickens plus he paid us twenty-five dollars a month all year long. He would drive the side roads at four o’clock in the morning to see if we were up.

Dad Neubauer did not think it was right for Edward to be a hired man all the time but Dad Schermer thought it was ok. In the fall of 1942 he (my dad) talked to Sumner Osgood who owned a farm south of Iowa Falls. It was for sale but not rented for that year so we rented it. We needed machinery so my dad found a good F-12 and we bought a used manure spreader and a few other necessities but we needed money to pay for this stuff. My dad went to the Iowa Falls bank and we could get a note for 1,900 dollars, but we needed a co-signer. Dad Schermer did not want to sign for us because he was sure we would not make it but my dad said he would sign for us, but pride put Dad Schermer’s name on that note. Needless to say we paid that note off in two years. I forgot to mention that Dad Schermer had given us a team of horses so we were ready to farm. We lived only a couple of miles from Fern and John (Grandma’s aunt and uncle) so we had lots of good times. Sunday night we would put together what food we had and eat supper together. Lynn was born while we lived here.

Luck was not on our side and that place was sold almost as soon as we moved there. It sold for ninety-three dollars an acre. It was on this place we had electricity. There were two light bulbs hanging from the ceiling.

We then moved to a farm three miles south of Alden known as the Brooks Farm. The house was in terrible condition. You could see the sun set under the west kitchen wall and the mice were thicker than the flies. Black coal tar ran down the chimney wall and our drain was a pipe out the north wall of the kitchen.

Dad Schermer still thought we should be by Latimer so in January of 1945 we moved to the “Schermer home place”, three miles north, one west, and one mile north of Latimer. This was Edward’s grandparent’s place and a lot of family members had lived here. We lived here until February of 1950. It was here I got a small bottle gas stove and was it ever heaven not to have to fire up that cook stove in the summer. It was here we got our first refrigerator. The war was now over and factories could do things other than war equipment. It was odd that it was a family member caused trouble and caused us to move from here.

We had five great years here. We went to St. Paul, MN, while we lived here and bought a 1946 Plymouth on the black market for $2,600. That was $1,200 over list price. Due to the war there were no cars available.

In March of 1950 in a terrible blizzard we moved to the Witte place one mile north, two miles east, and one-half mile south of Latimer. We also rented the August Witte place across the road. It was here Loren was born in March of 1951. One memory stays with me — Loren had so many medical problems and then we fixed our formula from scratch. One day I accidentally got the maple syrup instead of the dark syrup and every time Loren would burp he would smell like maple. We had four great years here. Wittes were the best landlords you could ask for. We never had a written contract with them. We just all trusted each other.

It was then in 1954 we bought a one hundred twenty acre farm from Paul Borcherding. It was one mile south and five miles west of Coulter. We worked so hard to make it our home. It had a cistern but in a short time we had Mortons put in a water system. Here we had our first indoor bathroom. It was so nice to say goodby to the outside two-holer and the pot. I used eight gallons of varnish remover on the kitchen and stairway. We built a new machine shed.

After being blest with three boys, it was here that God blest us with our baby girl, JoEllen, in November of 1954. We were one happy family and life was good.

From 1947 to 1969 we drove the children to Christian Day School at Saint Paul’s Lutheran Church in Latimer. It was part of the days work to go morning and night. We reviewed confirmation lessons and memory work. It was good for Mom as well as the children. We made lots of memories, like hunting with Loren on the way to school and getting blood on his pants. We went to Kagy Mason’s store and he had one pair of tan pants left and it was Loren’s size. He was so very thin then. There was the morning the car stalled on the railroad track and a milk truck came along and pulled us off before the train came. Talk about bonding with your kids, we were bonded in every phase of life.

As our farm was small, times got tough for us. Dad and I did custom baling. Then one fall Hennings asked Dad if he would help them out in the construction work for six weeks. Well, that stretched into eleven years. Dad and Uncle Bill had always worked together but at this time we rented the farm to Uncle Bill. It was at this time Loren left for college at Seward, Nebraska. JoEllen left for nurses’ training in August of 1973.

During this time the construction of Interstate 35 started to take place. The farmers in our area fought hard to stop it but to no avail. Since it went through our place we just sold them the whole farm. It was hard to part with our home of twenty years that Dad had remodeled into such a great home.

At that time there was not a house to buy or rent in Latimer nor was there a lot for sale to build on. Roy Stover let us buy their apple orchard. The Henning Construction Co. started to build our house in August of 1973 and we moved on December 13th, 1973.

After we got to town, Dad quit the construction company and went to work for Hansen Motor and Implement Co. He worked there for eleven years. The last few years Bob Duvall owned the business. Dad had to quit working at this time because he had to have hip replacement.

I worked in the hot lunch program at CAL School from August to October then the O’Briens who owned the locker called to ask me to work for them. I worked there for ten years when it was sold to Faye Stanhope. I worked six years for him and retired to celebrate our golden wedding in December of 1989.

Where we go from here is in God’s hands, but with His guidance and grace it has been a great life together. We have been so blest.