Siblings Archives - Life in Fountain Prairie

Remembering Maynard

Obituary Photos of the Funeral Photos of Maynard Video of the Funeral Maynard’s 95th Birthday Photos of the Funeral

Albert Eme (Al) – born April 19, 1915 The fifth child was Albert and they called him “Aap” pronounced, “Op.” Jacob and Albert two boys were always close. We called them “Bop and Aap.” When they were called for supper or to do a chore, it sounded like one word: “Bop’n’Aap.” Throughout the drought and…

Hard Work and Helping Neighbors

Lazy or not, my teenage work days were fourteen hours a day on a tractor, plowing or cultivating. As if that were not enough, Pa sent me to plow for the neighbors, such the Hoeks or De Boers when they had family tragedies. During harvest time, I had a team and a hay wagon and…

South Dakota State

Al and Elsie were of great help to me when I started college at South Dakota State. They supplied me with potatoes and eggs whenever I hitchhiked back from Brookings, South Dakota on weekends. I cooked for my American Indian roommate and myself on a one-burner hot plate. Neither of us had much money. Sometimes…

Wally Gets the Hook

Ted, his best friend Wally, and I decided to go fishing in the crick near Uncle Jake’s shanty. Catching fish was not only a fun activity, but during the Great Depression the fish we caught were a key part of our family diet. Even though Jake’s crick was dry during the Dust Bowl years, we…

Summer Job: Finding Food for the Cattle

When my brother Ted was 12 and I was 10, one of our jobs was to herd cattle. During the Great Depression and drought the pastures were dried up and there was nothing for the cattle to eat. However, there was some edible growth along the roadsides. We would take our whole herd of cattle out along the roadsides so they would have something to eat. Our job was to control the cattle so that they wouldn’t sneak into fields along the roadsides of adjoining farmland.

Homemade Toys…the Smith Way

Welding and Forging Toys The Smith’s were well known for their mechanical abilities. When neighbors needed help with their farm machinery, they called the Smith boys to help. Our parents expected us to entertain ourselves, and that entertainment often included welding and forging our own homemade toys in the tool shack. We spent hours in…

The Great Gopher Hunt

Daniel and Marvin as small children in Fountain Prairie

Pa announced that the gophers along the pasture were going into the cornfields and had already dug up the whole first row of the newly planted corn.

“If you boys can catch some of these gophers I’ll give you a penny a piece for them.”

Ted and I were really excited. If we could catch those gophers we would make a lot of money.

Ted said, “Let’s take our buggy. Let’s put a barrel on it and fill it with water. Then we’ll go out in the field and drown out those gophers. We should be able to drown out a whole lot of them with a whole barrel full of water. At a penny each we will be making a lot of money!”

Brother Al

Throughout the drought and depression, Al stayed in school and graduated from the eighth grade. There was no work away from home and there was nothing to harvest. Al and Elmer Vander Burg went bumming on the railroads. They lived from day to day on handouts, garden thefts, or small odd jobs. They went as…

Jake in School

Jake was Henry (Pa) and Katie’s fourth child. Brother Jake was sent to Hull, Iowa Christian Academy for fifth grade when he was age fourteen. He worked on Piet Van Driel’s farm for his room and board. He did satisfactory work at the school but he did not want to go away from home again the…