The following is an Interview that my Daughter had with my Mother. I also participated.
A: "Ok, the first one is,"Where exactly did you live?"
L: "Well, I was born in a farm house three miles outside of the town of Hartington, Nebraska.- All of my brothers and sisters were born at home, so we were born and raised in this house on this farm."
J.-"Did the doctor come to your house?"
L: "Yes, he came to our house, and his name was Doctor Johnson, and he would bring his nurse with him, who was an R.N., and they would deliver the babies, and come and...-Dr.-Johnson used to drink a little bit, and because the was the only doctor and he made all the rounds with in the big family of Kathols.- Why one of my brothers-- in filling out his birth certificate he had his uncle's name as the father!"-
J: "Got the wrong name, Huh?"
L: "He must have nipped a little too much, and he forgot whose house he was at when he filled it out, and he put my uncle's name instead of my father's."
J: "Were there a lot of people by the Kathol name in the Hartington area?"
L: "Not in the Hartington area at that time, but in the Bow Valley area.- My father was the only one who left from his home."
J: "Where was that?"
L: "It was about, oh 10 or 15 miles, I'd say fifteen miles from where my father settled, but you have to understand, that 15 miles in the days of the horse and buggy was quite a distance.- So my father moved to Hartington, east of Hartington, and his parents and brothers and sisters still lived 15 miles away in the Bow Valley area which is actually closer to Yankton, South Dakota."
A: "Ok, so How big was the farm you lived on?"
L: "My father had 80 acres of prime farmland, which is not big as far farms go today, but it was all under cultivation, and it was very rich riverland, bottom land they called it, and with a creek, Little Bow Creek running through his farm."
J: "I remember Little Bow creek."
L:"So he had water, and it was flat and rich and it was very, very good soil. And like you say, it was all under cultivation, and he raised 7 children on 80 acres."-
J: "Did he have any children at the time he settled on the Little Bow creek?"
L:" No, it was the custom when a man married, the father set up the son in business, set them up on a farm, so grandpa John Kathol bought this 80 acres and built a house there for his son, who had been working on his home farm where he was raised. -He was 25 years old and he had never received any salary.- He had worked from the time he was a little child until he was 25.- Until he married, on his father's farm.- So when he did marry he (John) bought him 80 acres as a wedding present and built him a house, and my mother's family furnished it."
A: "How far away were the closest neighbors?"
L: "Well the neighbors; there was a neighbor right across the road. There was a field in front of our house, so it would be, say, maybe a walk, maybe a walk of about two city blocks between our house and the road, and then the other farm was right across the street, and their name was Rumfelt."
J: "I remember going into the house and going down into the basement with mom, and it was abandoned at that time, and there were all these jars of abandoned lard.
L.:Well they used that stuff."
A: "For candles and stuff?"
L: "Oh no, they didn't make candles, we cooked with lard and we rendered lard because we didn't have refrigeration and so when we butchered a pig for example, my mother would--just like those pork chops you had tonight - all those pieces of meat would be cut up into chunks, and they would be fried, and then they would be dropped into this big crock, and then she'd pour boiling, melted pork fat - grease on top of them."
J: "And that would preserve them?"
L: "That would preserve it."
J: "How long would it stay like that?"
L: "A year, two years; it was down in the basement, and all we would do, was my mother would give me a great big long-handled fork and I'd go down there and stab into the fat and pull out X- number of pieces of meat, you know, whatever we thought we needed for our dinner and put it in a pan and heated it up, and our dinner was cooked.-And the meat was preserved."
A: "Did you go into town, was it Hartington, a lot?"
L: "My father went in every Saturday, he took the cream and eggs, that we would sell, and of course the cream would be very sour by that time, he had big aluminum cream cans, and he would take this sour creams in, and the eggs, take them in to the dairy, or the creamery it was called, and they would buy this to make butter, and they would buy the eggs, and then the money he would get from the cream and eggs, he would go over to the grocery store and fill out my mother's grocery list.- My mother rarely went to town."
J: "What about church on Sunday?"
L: "We went to church every Sunday, and many times in the evening.- We would go back for devotions in the evening as a child."
J: " So that would be the only exception for your mom going into town."
L: " We never went down into town on the streets."
J: "Oh the church was on the outside?"
L: "Well it was 4 or 5 blocks from the down town business district, it was set in the residential area by a school.- and so we would go to mass there and go to church. And other than going to church on Sunday, my mother would go in occasionally to get a permanent, go to see a hairdresser once or twice maybe, and occasionally when she wanted to buy something other than groceries, but she never did her own grocery shopping, she just made out a list, and either called it in to the grocer or gave it to my dad and my dad would drop the list off with the grocery store before he took the cream and eggs to the creamery; and by the time he got through with the cream and eggs and they paid him, then he'd go across the street to the bar, well there was a card game; the men sat in this old fashioned bar and he'd have a beer and he'd play some cards with some other men for an hour or so, and then he'd get up and go pick up the groceries, by that time the grocer would have all these groceries assembled, and all he did was go in and pick up the bags and pay for them, and go home again."
A: "What types of foods would they buy?"
L: "Well, when I was a child growing up, now I'm sure this changed from the time I was born from the time my mother married, but he would pick up things like flour and sugar, and flour came in 50 pound bags, and sugar in usually 10 pound bags, cause we didn't use that much sugar. And he'd, occasionally, pick up some jello, couple packages of jello."
A: "To make jello salad?"
L: "Well that was--"
J: "--real popular in the midwest."
L: "Yeah, because we only had salad fixings when the garden was green. You see, in the winter months, my mother and dad didn't buy lettuce and things like that.- Refrigeration was not a very common thing; we didn't have automobiles, refrigerated trucks to move all this produce from warm climates to the cold midwest, so we didn't have much in the way of (that stuff)...but we'd have carrots in the basement, and potatoes in the basement, that we raised ourselves, and then we'd eat meat and potatoes and a vegetable, and we always had ... oh and she'd buy oatmeal, big cans of oatmeal, big boxes, big round boxes of oatmeal, and carol-syrup, in a gallon can; and that's what we would put on our pancakes and on our johnny-cakes, as we called it; that was a corn-bread, and my mother would make it with pure cream. It was just like cake, and we'd put dark caro-srup on it. We thought this was heavenly. Of course it doesn't sound very good today, but we never knew any different. It was good. And once in a while they would bring home a lemon. They'd bring home 3 lemons, and we'd make a pitcher of lemonade, and we'd all get just a little glass. How I wished I could have had a second glass, but by the time the family got a little taste, it was gone."
J: "And finally grandma had her own private Meyer lemon bush."
L: "Yep.- And had lots of lemons."
A: "What type of crops and foods and things did your father mainly cultivate?"
L.:"Corn was his primary crop.- And he had a field of alfalfa always, that he would make for hay to feed the cattle and the horses.- And he would raise small grain, which would be primarily oats, and barley. We did not raise wheat. That was in Kansas. Winter wheat and more of dry farming in the southern states."
J: "What did grandpa do with the corn, oats and barley?"
L: "The oats and the barley were shelled and he would sell them.- Some oats--we saved lots of oats to feed the horses. Can't raise horses without having oats. And the corn, of course; we fed corn to the pigs. Well, a certain amount of the corn was saved on the cob was put in corn cribs. And they're buildings that are made with slats, so air could get through. And those were filled with the corn, still on the cob, that was fed to the animals, especially the pigs, because we raised a lot of pigs. And, then some of the corn was shelled, and that of course was sold. That would be stored in bins, and you shell corn with a corn sheller."
J: "Is that a machine?"
L: "Well, it's a piece of machinery, yes. And then, when the prices were right; when they thought - they would always listen to the farm report on what prices were for a bushel of corn. And when my father thought the price was right he would sell it. And of course, you see they raised cattle, and fattened steers, and when the price was write, he'd ship some steers to market. And a big truck would come on the place, and they's load these cattle up and ship them, and that's how we'd make some money. And pigs too!"
J: "You say a lot of cows and pigs, how much of a herd?"
L: "Oh, my father was a small operator, compared to my brothers today, but he might ship 5 or 6 steers. But you know, a steer might be worth several hundred dollars back then, maybe a thousand today.- But in those days that was still a lot of money."
J: "It seems to me that when I went back there I remember seeing some chicken coops or something."
L: "Oh we raised - well we had chickens, but we never raised chickens for anything other than the eggs. Now I had some relatives, aunts and uncles, who raised chickens as friers, sold them as young friers; but we just raised the chickens for the eggs and sold the eggs. And my dad hated chicken because they never cooked a young fryer; my mother only had these old laying hens;b and we'd kill an old rooster and they were tough old birds; you could have cooked them for half a day and they were still tough; So my dad hated chicken."
A: "Did you make your own clothes?"
L: "Oh, yes!- I started making my own clothes when I was about 14 years old."
A: "And before that your mom made them?"
L: "My mother made my clothes."
A: "What types of fabrics would you use?"
L: "Cotton, wool."
A: "Were the fabrics pretty, like with little flowers all over them?"
L: "Yes, and plaids, and I remember having a navy blue, wool serge dress with a white sailor collar on it with red rueching on it."
J: "Did your mom keep up on fashion?"
L: "Oh yes, my mother, within her budget, was very fashion conscience. In those days, a woman did not go to town, grocery shopping, or to town period, without wearing a hat and gloves, and when my mother went to town, she was wearing a hat and gloves! White gloves."
A: "What is your earliest memory ever?"
L: "One of my earliest memories, was as a little child and I was being teased by my 4 older brothers.- And I remember they were teasing me and I was chasing them around this big kitchen table and finally I just had a really good tantrum. And I could never figure out why my mother let them tease me like that!"
J: "Did you ever figure it out?"
L: "Nope."
J: "Was your mom there?"
L: "Oh yeah, my dad too. They just let us whoop it up until I had enough and I just threw a rip-roaring tantrum; screaming and pounding or something, and that was the end of that; I think I shocked my older brothers. I made enough noise that they finally stopped."
J: "How old do you think they were?"
L: "Probably between 4 or 5."
A: "So you had 4 older brothers? How much older than you were they?"
L: "Well, my oldest brother was born in 1918, or 19, I'm not sure when he was born, I'd have to look it up.- You have it in your genealogy how old he was, and I was born in 1927, so there was a span of 8 years there.- My mother had 5 children in 8 years.- There was 3 years between my youngest brother and me. It had to be more than that. No, but that's about right, 8 or 9 years; in 9 years she had 5 children."
A: "How many younger sisters did you have?"
L: "I had 2 younger sisters. One was, I think, about 2 years younger than me; amd my youngest sister was 7 years younger than me."
A: "Did you ever get in trouble and get like spanked or punished or something?"
L: "Yes, I got spanked. My mother kept a little, narrow, leather strap about 3 quarters of an inch wide, and she kept it rolled up in a circle, and it was in her sewing box.- And if we were bickering and fighting and carrying on, she'd tell us to stop, and if we didn't stop, my mother never raised her voice or screamed.- In fact, it just went the opposite.- When she got angry her voice became very quiet.- And when she walked very fast for that sewing box, we took off.- To the yard, someplace.- We left!- We were going to get hit with that strap! And of course it never amounted to anything, but it was the threat.-And that's all it took: for her to walk over to that sewing box, and we were through fighting."
A: "What were your chores around the house and farm?"
L: "I had to go out, after school, and go into the pig-pen and pick up corn cobs where the pigs had eaten all the corn off of it, and pick up a bushel basket of corn-cobs, in order to put them in this wood and coal stove that my mother cooked on; cause she burned those corn cobs in there as fuel to cook with. And, so that was one of my jobs, and of course I had to make my bed, and I had to wash dishes. We had to take turns washing and drying the dishes. And I had to help my mother make dinner, had to always do the errands. Had to run down into the basement and get the meat, get a jar of green beans, get this, get that. And, lets see, and on the weekends I would make cookies, and it was my job to clean the upstairs bedrooms. We had 4 bedrooms upstairs. Every Saturday morning it was my job to sweep and clean those rooms, and to change those sheets, and whatever had to be done."
A: "I think the making cookies part wouldn't have been to bad."
L: "Yeah, but I had to do a little more than that; but I'd drag it out for the whole morning."
J: "On purpose?"
L: "Oh, I'm sure, because I remember lying on the bed like this, you know, with my hands behind my head, day-dreaming, and finally I'd think 'I'd better get to work' and pretty soon I'd get up and sweep a little bit, and move along. I was a typical kid."
J: "And I always thought that farmer daughters were so energetic, and just went right to it, up at the crack of dawn, and milking the cows. I guess the boys did that, huh?"
L: "Well, I did do one other thing.- I would get up before anyone in my family; my mother, my father, and anybody. This is when I was about 14. From about the time I was in 8th grade through high-school, I'd get up in the winter time, and I'd come down in this cold, cold, house, and I'd go clear down to the basement, and I would light the furnace, the wood and coal furnace, and get that started, so the house would be warm, the kitchen and dining room would be warm when my mother and dad got up."
A: "Did your mom and dad really appreciate everything?"
L: "Oh, yes, oh yes. My dad was very generous with his compliments and praise, yeah."
J: "I remember once when I went back there, there was a rain-barrel out the back kitchen door.- What was that for?"
L: "That was used to wash clothes and to wash our hair, because that was soft water.- Our water was rather hard, hard water from out of the well, and rain-water is soft water, and when you washed clothes with it or anything, things got whiter and cleaner, and if you washed your hair, it was like having a-- well, it was soft water."
J: "What happened to that rain-barrel in the winter when it got real cold, did you have to empty it?"
L: "No, it just froze."
J: "Didn't break the barrel?"
L: "No, because there was no top on it."
A: "Could have you melted snow?-would that still be soft?"
L: "Well, yes, you could've."
A: "Did you have running water?"
L: "When I was a little child, when the house was built, there was a well directly underneath the house, and in our kitchen sink, we had a, oh, about 36 inches long sink, about 6 inches deep. And then there was a pump on one side, with a handle.- And we'd just pump like this, and water would come rushing out into that sink.- And it was good drinking water.- Well water."
J: "Did you have electricity to begin with?"
L: "Oh, absolutely not.- We had a kerosene stove; in fact this lamp up here, no, where is it?- Oh, it's in our bedroom back there now. That was the lamp that was in my bedroom as a child, that kerosene lamp.- My mother had a gas light that gave quite a bright, white light. But it would get dimmer and dimmer, and then you'd have to take it down and you'd have to, like you pump up a tire, you'd pump up pressure in it, and it would get brighter again. And then occasionally it would run out of fuel in the middle of the evening, and my dad would have to stop what he was doing, and go fill the lamp again. And we only had that one gas lamp and the rest were kerosene lamps."
J: "How old were you when you finally got electricity?"
L: "I was about 12 years old when rural electrification came through the whole middle-west. That was a project of Franklin Rosevelt. Rural electrification was one of the major, major improvements for the farmer and for country people. Because now we could have running water, we had electricity in the houses.- Up until that time, we had to iron with sadirons, you know, the irons that you set on the stove and heated. In summertime we'd have to have this roaring hot fire."
A: "I saw some of the irons upstairs."
L: "Those are the ones I learned to iron on."
A: "Don't they get hot?- The handles get hot?"
L: "No, there's a wooden handle that doesn't get hot. But that would get so hot on the stove, and then you'd hit this dampened clothes.- If it was too hot it would leave this big scorch mark on your shirts, your daddy's white shirt, and if it wasn't hot enough it wouldn't take any wrinkles out. So we were running back and forth all the time; as soon as the iron got cool, you'd set it back on this hot stove, and grab another one.- So you can imagine what it was like when it was a hundred degrees out, and we had this stove in the house going in order to heat those irons. So all of a sudden we had electricity, and my mother got an electric iron, she got an electric stove; we didn't have to have this heat in the house in the middle of summer. It made life so much easier for my mother. And we didn't have to pump; we had now a faucet where there was a pump before. And we converted a pantry into a bathroom! It didn't have a tub, because our house had never provided for a bathroom when they built it. So we converted the big walk-in pantry into a bathroom. So we were the only house I know of where the bathroom opened off the kitchen. All we had in there was a stall shower, and a toilet, and a sink, and a linen closet."
A: "Did you have an outhouse, or another bathroom?"
L: "We did.- We had an outhouse up until that time, but of course, once we got the indoor plumbing, they got rid of that old, outdoor, backhouse."
J: "Did you go out there in the winter time?"
L: "At any time.-I mean, of course.- At night we would have chamber pots.- And we'd have this big old chamber pot with a lid -that sat up in my mom and dad's bedroom.- We kids would come in, and use the chamber pot and slam the lid back on.- And then it was my job to empty that chamber pot every day!- And that wasn't so much fun; I'd to take it out no matter what the weather; I'd have to take it out to the old backhouse, the old privy out in the back, and dump it.- Well, that was primitive, but everyone-then else lived the same way."
A: "Did your brothers and sisters ever get any unpleasant chores also?"
L: "Well, my brothers all had to work very hard.- They had to get up in the morning and before they could have breakfast, they had to go out to the barn and milk the cows. A farmer always took care of his animals and fed them before he fed himself. They all had to get up, no matter how cold it was, whether it was snowing, or what, and go out to the barn, bundle up and go out to the barn and milk. And feed the horses, and calves, and then the pigs had to be fed. And when they got all those chores done, they could come in and have breakfast. And the only thing we ever had for breakfast, was oatmeal; and bread."
A: "Did you have anything on your oatmeal?"
L: "Oh, sure.- We had sugar and milk."
J: "Did you ever have any fruit for breakfast, or anything?"
L: "Never had any fruit.- Never had eggs or bacon."
J: "You never ate your eggs?"
L: "No, my mother cooked eggs like - and I found this after I went to Germany - I found that she cooked just exactly like they still cook eggs in Germany. She would take a skillet; have it scalding hot, an inch of bacon fat in it and drop an egg in it. And all the edges would crisp and curl up, you know, in all that fat; it was like french-frying an egg. And I didn't like eggs, once in a while my dad would eat an egg, but I didn't like those kind of eggs. I never tasted an egg cooked the way we cook eggs today, until I left home, in California."
A: "What were the games you'd play and your hobbies?"
L: "We played cards! When I was a little girl we had quite a willow tree.- These were not weeping willows - these were willow trees, though, that grew below what uses to be an old creek bed; behind the farm buildings; and they grew rather close together. And so we would take binder twine, and we'd rope off rooms, and create rooms. And then we'd use apple crates and things, and make our kitchen furniture, and we'd create playhouses! And we'd make mud-cakes and we'd bake cookies and we'd have all these little mud cakes all out."
J: "You mentioned apple crates.- Did you have fruit trees on your farm?"
L: "No, not as a small child; but as I got older, my dad planted some orchards. But I think he planted them in the wrong spot. He planted them down, below the bluff, near the stream, the creek. And they did not live long! And I think it's because they had wet roots.- Our water table was so high there."
J: "Especially down by the creek."
L: "And these trees do not like wet roots. And wet feet.; So they did not live well, or bear well and they didn't last long."
A: "Did you have any other animals besides the ones you've mentioned?"
J: "You mean like dogs and cats?"
L: "We had dogs and cats. Dogs and cats were not really pets, in the way you have pets. These were working animals. These dogs had to bring in the cows. We'd send the dog out, and he'd go out into the field and bring the cows in-for milking. And it was the cats' job to keep the mice and rats out of the granary, and the barn, and everything, and so they were working animals. We maybe cuddled them once in a while, or held them every now and then, but they were not pets."
A: "Did you ever have any real pets?"
L: "No, not like you have pets. We had animals all around us; And animals on a farm are not though of as pets. They're raised for food or for profit. And then, we didn't get attached to them."
A: "Was there wild animals?"
L: "Oh, yes.- My brothers used to trap mink, and muskrat. Of course it was a shame they did. And we had beaver. But they would skin these animals, and stretch their pelts, when they were teenagers, and they'd earn money that way."
J: "Did they fish the creek ever?"
L: "Oh, yes.- And I did too. And I'd catch bull-heads. Bull-heads are the ones with those sharp whiskers, and they're black, and they have no bones, they're very good eating because they have no bones. But they have these sharp things - whiskers that come out, and they're very sharp. And I'd use to take binder twine, and a bamboo pole, and a fishing hook, and go down to the creek and find where I thought there was a hole that was deeper than the rest of the creek, and there'd be the fish."
J: "So occasionally you'd have fish in your diet, too, huh?"
L: "Oh, a little.- Not much.- Not enough to speak of."
A: "What was the land and climate like in the Nebraska area you lived in?"
L: "Well, it could be that summers were up into the low hundreds.- And the winters could get as low as 10 below zero. When I was a child, the winters were much harsher han they are today."
J: "Back there?"
L: "Yes.- Today their winters are not nearly as harsh as when I was a child. And snow, we'd have - oh! I have to tell you about our sleigh rides. Can I tell you about--?"
A: "Yeah, that's my next question."
L: "OK, what's your next question?"
A: "What did you do during the winter?"
L: "We had a number of things.- We had a pond. My neighbors, by the name of Pollock, And they had a pond on their property. And this pond would freeze over; and then at night my older brother, and this neighbor boy and his sister would build a big bond fire on the side of the pond, and we would sit on an old log and warm our tottsies.and our hands and then we'd skate. And our older brothers made their own hockey sticks. and had a hockey puck. They had a real honest to goodness hockey puck, but they had to make their own sticks. And they were pretty crude, because they had no way of buying, or getting, these hockey sticks. And so they'd play hockey on this, and when they'd tire of that , why we girls would skate around a little bit and sit there, and sometimes we'd bring some marshmallows
A. Sounds like fun!
L. And then we had this big hill between the highway and the road that left the highway to come to come in front our farm had quite a steep hill and at night we and all the neighbor kids. the kids who lived across the street, and the kids who lived further on downthe road, we'd all come up to this hill with our sleds and we'd climb that hill and then we'd pile two or three deep on those sleds, because the more weight there was the faster you'd go. And I can still hear the sound of those runners on that hard packed snow, and it would be a snowy starry night; and boy by the time we'd get home we'd be nearly froze but happy -
A. Man, I bet that was fun!
L. It was.
J. You were going to tell us about sleigh rides!
L. That is when we'd do the sleigh rides! We'd climb the hill and pile on two or three deep -
J. Oh! Sled rides!
L. Sled rides! We'd put these "Flyers", what do you call those -
J. "Flyers" yeah!
L. Yeah! And one of the bigger boys would be on the bottom, and then a medium sized kid, and one of the littlest kids would hop on the top; so it would be three deep. And they'd go down that hill, and boy sometimes we go pretty fast! And sometimes we'd hit a bump or a rut or hole, and the whole thing would tip over and we'd go flying! It was fun!
A. Did you ever move from your house.
L. Never until I left home to go to California. My parents lived in that same home their whole life, and after my mother died my father moved into town and sold the farm to one of his children.
A. What was your house like? Like how many rooms and how big?
L. Down stairs there was a big kitchen; and a big dining room. And the dining room had a window seat; kind of a bay window with a window seat in it, that you could lift the lid of the window seat and kept all our toys in there. And then we had a parlor. and we had a stairwell which was closed off like this with doors. And there was a downstairs bedroom. And then off the kitchen was kind of a lean to. which was an enclosed back porch; where my mother had another old woodstove where she would heat-; and an old Maytag washing machine out there; and that's where she'd heat her her water to do her washing and stuff out there.
J. What was the basement used for?
L. Well the basement was used to store food. And the upstairs had four bedrooms. And my bedroom was the smallest, because I was allowed, I did'nt have to sleep with any one else; I did'nt have to share so I had this little bitty bedroom; and it had a door to the front porch, a big upstairs front porch. Now what else?
A. What kind of farm buildings were there, and how many?
L. Oh! We had one of those big picture - just like in pictures- a big red hip-roofed barn! And it had the big upstairs hay-mow, with the big sliding door where you could pitch the hay down to the animals below. And it had trap doors where you could pitch it down into the stalls inside. And in the bottom part, in the lower portion, was the stalls for the cattle, and then there was the stalls for the horses. And in the back part, another part, were big rooms where they put grain - cement rooms- with cement walls, and they would store the barley or oats in there for the horses.
A. So was your family well to do in comparison to other families?
L. I would never say we were well to do! My parents struggled very hard; and when all their neighbors lost their farms, my parents through thrift and hard work, and knowing how to sacrifice, and not borrowing any money, they were able to save their farm. But they were never well to do; but we always had enough.
J. Mom. you told us about the barn; were there other workshops?
L. Oh yes! Then we had in addition to that, we had a long red barn which was a - actually we had two - that were for pigs. One was on one side of the house, and one sat on the other side of the house. One was for the old sows for when they were having litters; and the other one was where they'd put these young shoats, young pigs, like a teenager yopu might say, were these larger pigs that were not sold yet; they would be in this other barn, where there was pasture. And we had a big machine shed, It was a very long building with three sides; and the front was completely open; and the farm machinery was driven into that shed. And then there was the garage - a single car garage - where my dad kept his car; and that was attached to the chicken coups. And then there were the chicken coups. And then there was the big red barn. And that's all the buildings we had!
A. What color was the house?
L. The house was white. And all the barns and out buildings bright red.
A. Did your father paint them all?
L. Oh yes! But the last couple of years - The last time I saw them - they were badly in need of paint; and it made me fell sad because I'm sure it would be expensive to paint all those big barns.
A. What was your school like?
L. I went to first and second grade to this little country school, where all eight grades were held in this school. There wasn't always eight grades, because there wasn't children for certain grades; some years we'd skip that class because there were no children that age. but there were four of us in my class. My neighbors all had children my age; so there was three girls and one boy in my class. .... And we had a pot bellied stove in the back, and three out buildings. There was an acre of ground set aside for our school, a little one room school house. And the boys privy would be over on one side, and the girls privy on the other side; and in the middle was the wood shed where they would store wood for us for the winter. And so we would, us kids, go to the wood shed and haul the wood in to heat that old pot bellied stove.
A. What subjects did you learn?
L. We had reading, writing, and, no had penmanship, we had the palmer method of penmanship; we learned to write beautifully! Penmenship!
J. You have really god writing. even to this day!
L. And we'd have arithmetic, and reading, and history; and as we got into upoer grades we'd have geography, and civics, and english composition. But we had such a limited number of textbooks, that sometimes I'd have a book, but it didn't even have a cover. nad there might be four of us kids, and we might have only two textbooks; there was no money for textbooks; there was these beat uo old ragged things was all we'd have!
J. was this a public school or private?
L. Yeah! A public school!
A. What were the teachers like?
L. The teachers were usually young women about eighteen years old, right out of Holy Trinity High School; because anyone who graduated from their "Normal" classes, which was the name given - "Normal" was the name given to - when you went to become a teacher - you went to a Normal School, which was applied to someone learning how to get a teaching credential. So anyone who graduated from Holy Trinity High School would be accredited with the university of Nebraska, and the state of Nebraska, to teach for two years without any additional college. And most of those girls were only seventeen years old when they got out, some were eighteen, but most were seventeen; and then they could teach for two years before having tp take any college classes. And usually at the end od the two years, the young women got married; and then we'd get another one.
A. Did you have a lot of friends at your schools?
L. Well you have to remember we only had between eight and thirteen children in school at one time.
A. Oh! Did you have a best Friend?
L. No, not really, not a best friend at that time; not until I was in high school.
J. Did you go to a different school in high school?
L. I went to Holy Trinity High School.
J. What grade did you start there?
L. Ninth grade. But I went to Holy Trinity Grammar School in the third grade when my brothers were in high school. And my father- we had a buggy and a horse - we bought a race horse, a retired race horse. And this thoroughbred horse and this buggy was used because I was to little to walk the three miles. So my brothers got to drive the horse and buggy to take me to school. And so when we came to town with the horse and buggy - my parents had some friends who had a small barn behind their house - and my brothers would put the horse and buggy in their stable, their little barn, during the day. And then school went out we'd hitch him up again, and we'd come home. And in the winter time, when the roads were covered with snow, they'd take the wheels off the buggy and put on runners; we had had to turn it into a sleigh.
A. Was that fun?
L. Yeah. And on the really bad cold days we had a big old buffalo robe; and they throw this buffalo robe over me completely. And I'd sit on the floor of this buggy or sleigh; and my mother would heat bricks and put those in there for my feet; and I would sit there under that buffalo robe while my brothers would drive me to school.
J. That was just the third grade?
L.. UmHum. just the third grade. And then I was back to the country school. and then it was not until I was a ninth grader; then I went back to Holy Trinity and to high school.
A. Did relatives ever come and visit?
L. Oh yes! Practically every sunday afternoon if we didn't go visit some relative they'd come and visit us, and they'd stay for supper!
A. Did your grand parents ever -?
L. No, never my grand parents.
A. Did you ever visit them?
L. Oh yes! But we never stayed for dinner; we'd just come for a visit in the afternoon, on a Sunday afternoon. And grandma would always get out those honey cookies.
J. Which grandma was this?
L. Grandma Kathol.
J. Anna Kathol?
L. And John Kathol. And we go visit uncle Joe Kathol; this is the one who wife was also named Anna Burbach; the same as my mother's name. And they had a daughter, Marie, who was my age, and we would always visit. And I'll never forget one summer - a Sunday afternoon when we went to their house; and Marie - everybody, mothers and fathers use to cut their children's hair- Right? And they had just given Marie a shingle, a boys haircut! And I had such heavy hair! And my mother was so taken with this cropped head of hair, like a little boy's cut, you know? That before we left they - I can still remember them making me sit in their kitchen; and my uncle got the scissors, the clippers out, and I got a hair cut! Ohhh!!! I was so unhappy I could not do anything.
J. How old were you?
L. Oh, I must have been about ten or twelve, I got this boy hair cut! Just like a boy! There's pictures of me in there, just shingled all off like this; Ohh!! I hated that. Actually it didn't look to bad, now I think, but then I hated it!
A. What was the normal way you fixed your hair, when your mom had cut it.
L. I have no idea, I don't have any recollection of that other than I must have had a lot of hair, and it was always flying in all directions because it was big and bushy because it was curly, and it was very, very heavy.
J. I think we'll have to depend on the old photographs to answer that. I know mom had straitish hair as a little girl.
L. Bangs, dark black hair with bangs; and I had curly hair as a baby.
A. Did you ever have to watch your brothers and sisters, your younger one's, like baby sit them?
L. No, because my parents didn't do any thing without family; and they never went any place; If the went to the neighbors in the evening we would just stay home and play, because I had older brothers, for I was the fifth child, so I always had older brothers to look after us if my parents decided - but they rarely did that - Oh in the winter evenings they'd go to the neighbors to play cards and things.
A. So cards were really popular?
L. Yes. Card playing in the evening.
A. Did you ever have birthday parties?
L. Never!
A. Never?
L. Never!
J. How about a birthday cake?
A. With candles? Any presents?
L. Ohh, maybe as I got older, but I don't remember ever having a birthday cake with candles.
A. How did you celebrate Christmas?
L. Well we had a lot more Christmas than you do today. On december sixth we had Little Christmas!
A. Little Christmas?
L. Uhhuh! And that was when - which is really, I think, the feast of - I don't remember - (It was Saint Nicolas Day) - It was a German custom; and we'd put our plates out; and we'd just get candy and nuts on that day. Then on Christmas we would get the gifts and the candy and nuts. And what we would , because there were nine of us, we would set the table just like we would were going to sit for dinner; we'd put our plates out. And because we all sat in the same chair every night; and we knew where our chair was. And so when we would get up in the morning those plates would be filled with candy and nuts; and maybe there'd be a big orange there. And an orange was a big treat you know! Because that had to be bought. We had apples on the farm, and my father would buy apples by the bushel basket. But oranges were very special. And then there'd be a toy.
A. It probably was a lot of fun for your parents to set up your plates at night.
L. Probably. But you notice that I said there would be "a" toy!
A. Did over the years you sort of get a collection of toys, or share every bodies -
L. No, there was never any collections! Ha Ha Ha!
J. Did you have Christmas trees and stockings?
L. Oh yes! But we never had stockings. We'd put our Plate out! But we had a Christmas Tree. we always had a Christmas tree and with real live candles on it . And usually we'd get them in the first part of the holiday season, and put the tree up. And we would get to light the tree on two occasions for about five minutes, because it was too dangerous if this tree caught fire, you know; so we were real careful, and my mother would stand there and watch very carefully so that nothing would ever catch. You had to be so careful where those candles were placed, they were in little clip-on things like this, that cliped on to the end of the branch; and if that flame had touched another branch why the whole tree would have gone up!
A. Where did you get the candles?
L. Oh! From the Dime Store.
J. Did you have special things you put on the tree like popcorn strings?
L. No, we had beautiful, beautiful old German ornaments, that were imported, that were - that today are very expensive - but were very cheap back those days. And we had strings of beads, and things like that, and gold rope. And we saved it all from year to year. even the candles lasted from year to year, because we wouldn't use them long enough to use them up, hehehe, we light them and stand there and ooh and ahhh and blow them all out again!
A. When did you first move out of your parents home?
L. About three day after I graduated from High School I got on a - I took a bus from Hartington to Columbus Nebraska. And then I got on the train; and this was in 1944 during the war, and this was when we called them an "Old Cow Catcher", an old train that stopped at every little town along the way. And all I had was a seat, and they were wooden benches, and I sat there on that wooden bench all the way from Columbus Nebraska to Los Angeles.
J. Were you scared?
L. No. But I had to meet an Aunt and Uncle who were going to meet me there in the Los Angeles train depot, which is a very big cavernous place. And they were looking for a young girl whom they had never seen before; and I was looking for an Aunt and Uncle I had never seen before. But we did, we connected!
An Interview With Mom 
Family Reunion 2003