Dave Wood

Last week I regaled readers with songs my father sang, songs he learned in those glorious years of the Jazz Age when stock prices went up and moral behavior went down. I once asked him to give me his memories of the stock market crash and the hardship that followed. Dad’s own mother’s comment on grocery prices following World War II: “What this country needs is a damned good Depression!” Surprisingly, he smiled and said, “Ma’s attitude about the economy seems selfish because the crash was tough on all people, but our family survived and have, if poor, had a good time!

“After I left college in 1930, I found a job as hired man to Palmer Haug, an old neighbor who gave me 30 dollars a month and way less in winter. Even so, Palmer couldn’t pay my last month’s salary. Whenever we met he’d give me a dollar. He insisted on giving me a dump rake and half a hog after he butchered. (More of the hog later.)”

Dad got married in 1932 to Mom, whose aging widowed mother Allie Back hired him to manage her farm, which turned out very well—160 acres of rich bottomland halfway between Blair and Whitehall, a new modern cow barn and a herd of purebred Guernseys.

As the depression deepened. Mom’s two sisters and bachelor brother Chet hunkered down and all lived together in the drafty old farmhouse on the knoll looking down on Carpenter School and the Beswick cemetery where Allie Back’s relatives are buried.    

There was plenty to eat, Guernsey cream from which to churn butter, eggs from the Leghorns, and the talented culinary genius of my aunts Wyliss and Doree, who concocted her own recipe for Saltine crackers and made odoriferous Norwegian yellow Pultost, (aged cottage cheese) adored by her husband Leonard Johnson and his kid brother Teddy, who also came to hunker down. All this to consume while listening to the much-awaited rematch of Joe Louis and Max Schmeling. While Doree prepared the repast and filled glasses from 2-quart “picnics” of beer, on went on the Coronado. In seconds the match was over. What did you do then, Dad? “We played Whist. We played a lot of Whist in those days.”

They also danced. “Our house was crowded, but there were a lot of empty houses. After the banks foreclosed, the farmers packed up their families and furniture and took off. We’d get neighbor Tim Halvorsen to bring his fiddle, we’d bring beer and neighbors the Osgoods, the Solbergs and the Hesslers brought sandwiches and we entered to eat, drink and cut the rug. Only there was no rug!” 

Of course there was always the matter of money. Mom was about to drop me from her womb and what to do about the hospital and doctor bills. Along came Roosevelt’s Works Progress Administration and hired Dad to grade 1/2 mile before the new Highway 53. Most of the neighborhood was plagued with drought, but not Grandma’s 160 acres of bottomland. Guernseys don’t eat much hay, and local farms came to the new barn and bought load after load of his surplus.

Remember Palmer Haug’s hog? She’s about to come to another rescue. One weekend Uncle Floyd (remember him from last week? The boop-boop Dittum-Dattum Three Little Fishies guy) and Aunt Myrtle pulled into the farmyard in their new Studebaker. (Floyd had a good job in Eau Claire). Myrt went into the house to visit her sisters while Floyd strolled, puffing a stogie, noticing half a dressed hog hanging from the rafters of the corn crib. Dad explained its appearance; said he had his own hogs. Floyd replied, “I’ll give you 10 bucks for it.” Dad quickly tossed the hog in the big Studebaker’s trunk.

Then all went dancing in Oscar Nyen’s dancehall-barn up on Brekke Ridge. During a lively polka the elastic gave way on Mom’s panties and Mom, dancing with a stranger, kicked them off onto the dance floor. Guess who found them, put them on over his slacks and whirled past Mom and her befuddled partner?  

You can take the Flapper out of the Jazz Age, but not out of a dance hall, even if it’s in a barn!