Autobiography of Wilbur R. Thatcher (My Dad) Installment 2 of 10

This is installment 2 of my Dad's autobiography about his life growing up in Wayne County, Iowa. As before, I've transcribed Dad's original hand-written manuscript with minimal corrections. I hope you continue to find it interesting as well as insightful. *Read Installment 1 here.

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Wilbur R. Thatcher's handwritten autobiography, page 2 of 10

Our house burned to the ground in 1936 & destroyed everything we had. We lived in a large wooden grain building while the new house was being built. We had ice a foot deep on the ground that spring when the house burned. We had had a drought & chinch bugs and grasshoppers before this that destroyed all the crops. Grasshopper even ate the shovel handles, fence posts etc. Dad bought an old Fordson tractor after this & he and Irwin Sharp bought a new IH grain binder together. They hired Francis Fry to pull the binder because it was so hot horses couldn’t work. Francis father was a John Deere dealer where Gambles are now. We later bought an old JD A to farm with after the Fordson gave out. John & Guy Faulkner & Dad bought an old Wood Brothers thresher to thresh with. The Brown Brothers Tommie & Willie had been doing the threshing but it took all summer to make the rounds so they decided to do our own. Timothy seed and oats were the big crops. Oates had to be shocked & cured for 5 or 6 weeks before threshing. Timothy seed was a cash crop. All oats & corn were for feed. Raymond Morris bought the first pull type combine in Wayne Co. from Orville Goodell who ran a hardware store & farm equipment.