Dave Wood

Last week I related tales of my beloved late mother, Florence, as her fortunes transported her from the family farm to the “Towers of Zenith” [Chicago], and back to the bucolic existence of farm life, until the Depression drove her and my dad into the lively city of Eau Claire, when farming became an impossible way to sustain an income. Having lived through most of these life swings with her, I sincerely believe there’s truth in the adage that it's hard “to keep ‘em down on the farm after they’ve seen Eau Claire.”

Mom was no stranger to bucolic life, having been raised on a 160-acre farm where she shocked oats, weaned cunning little Guernsey calves to heiferhood, and learned basic culinary skills at the amply proportioned elbow of her mother, whose repertory ran to roast pork, then roast beef, then back to beef, etcetera. 

But mom did not have the makings of a farm girl and became a registered nurse. And she was a bona fide Roaring Twenties bobbed-hair flapper, who fell in love with a college boy, married him and slid into the management of his mother-in-law’s farm by day and dancing the nights away in the speakeasies and dance floors of western Wisconsin. It was all too good to be true, of course, when the financial crash came in the 30s.

Florence’s entire family retreated to the “Fortress,” the home farm, to weather the Depression. Dad’s supervisory position evaporated when his mother-in-law turned the farm over to her only son, thanks to the old custom of primogeniture. 

And that’s when Dad made a big decision to forego his lifelong ambition to farm and become a wage slave instead.

His job in the ultra-hot bagging department of Gilette Rubber in Eau Claire brought him no satisfaction, but Gillette was a union shop, the pay was better than most places, and the young couple watched their bank account grow to $500, enough to enable them to rent a 40-acre farm “back home,” purchase old machinery and furnish a house without water or electricity.

Eau Claire had provided my mom with bundles of free time to hang out with her sister, shop, and read movie magazines. Her evening chores were over quickly, leaving time for dancing and socializing. She was happier than she had been as a farm wife.

When we moved back to the farm, even as her little tadpole, I realized she sorely missed the niceties of life in America’s” Little Akron.” Fancy restaurants, live entertainment, watching the Eau Claire Bears in Carson Park, radio stations galore and shopping with her older sister who knew the ropes, owned an automatic dishwasher and drove a two-toned Studebaker—a new one every two years.

But it pleased her to know the love of her life was happy at last. He so succeeded on “God’s Little Acre” that a wealthy landowner entrusted Dad to supervise a 200-acre farm that even had electricity! And hot and cold running water. His success, in turn, allowed my mother to entertain at dinner parties that featured the signature specialties she had picked up during her short tenure as a “Townie” and acquire a telephone, which enabled her to gossip with friends, as well as “rubberneck” on communal lines.

How do you keep ‘em “down on the farm?” In my mom’s case it was by managing to supply her with some of the urban outlets and modern facilities that she learned to love in Eau Claire.  

I find it comforting, whenever we entertain URBAN friends, to serve Mom’s very special Evangeline’s Shrimp Salad, with fresh dill, horseradish, and mayonnaise, named after her good friend, whose name I found in Mom’s hand-written recipe book (only Hellman’s will do!)