Autobiography of Wilbur R. Thatcher (my Dad) Installment 5 of 10
This week's blog is installment 5 of 10 of my Dad's autobiography about growing up in Wayne County Iowa. Enjoy
I never was able to handle the old walking plow but I did run the sulky plow w/three horses & gang plow w/5 horses. We had an old 2 row cultivator that we pulled behind a tractor, later we got a 2 row mounted cult. for the old JD tractor & had one for the Farmall when we traded the JD off. Hay was raked with a sulky rake & pushed with a team of horses with a buck rake to the stacker where it was put on the stacks with a horse pulling the stacker rope. The rest was pitched on to a hay rack & hauled to the barn where it was picked up in partial loads with a harpoon fork which was later replaced with a grab fork.
There was no electricity or running water back then. Just the outhouse equipped with Montgomery Wards & Sears Roebuck Catalogue & corn cobs.
The Watkins man & the Mc Ness man were callers thru out the year selling spices & a variety of products. They drove old Model A & Model T cars. The roads were all dirt. No maintenance. Later there was a drag pulled by horses to smooth the road.
In 1936 there was a terrible drought. There was no crops harvested. Our house burned down in 1936 & we lived in a granary for a year & a half. Dad was unable to work because of fluid in the heart sac.
