Autobiography of Wilbur R. Thatcher (My Dad) - Installment 4 of 10

This week's blog is installment 4 of 10 of my Dad's autobiography about growing up in Wayne County Iowa. Enjoy.

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Neighbors all work together in the 30, 40’s & 50’s. Threshing crew meals were out of this world food wise. As a young boy I rode a pony carrying jugs of water to the workers. Everyone drank from the same jug. If someone didn’t have a boy to carry water I sometimes got the job about 50 cent a day.

We had a neighbor who was an alcoholic & when times got tough he would inhale fumes from the car gas tank. He had a buddy who stayed with him & his wife. He weighed about 350 lbs. & he could put a 180 lb. sack of timothy seed on top of a high wheel wagon box with one hand.

Mike Davis had the first rubber tired tractor in our area a new F30 Farmall. Guy Faulkner bought a new 1938 red F20 Farmall on skeleton wheels & later converted to rubber tires. Dad bought it later when we moved to Seymour.

We always had a large garden & larger truck garden. We’d raise a wagon load of potatoes for our own use. The garden was all hoed by hand. I rode a horse to Promise City to school for 3 ½ years then I got a driver’s license so I could get home sooner to work at home.

Wilbur R. Thatcher's handwritten autobiography, page 4 of 10.