1920's - Prarie Life Challenges - Part 10

Epidemic of the Spanish flu

After bindering or harvesting the crop, and stocking the sheaves, soon approached the threshing time. At first it was full gang of workers and everything was going well, and then one by one started to leave work and going home. I remember as we were threshing at brother Paul's place, one Russian German worker said “I have no strength to work” (insert Russian text pg.104) and went home. When threshing machine came to my place there were only a few teams left at work, and though it took longer time but managed to finish my crop.

At first we didn't know what was the matter, but afterwards when nearly everybody got sick, and doctors proclaimed that it was epidemic of Spanish flu, which afterward claimed many lives that autumn, and some of our relatives. At the time when we were both sick, came to us brother of my wife to inform us, another brother's wife's death. He did not even enter our house to avoid the contact, but later he also took sick and passed away. Also my brother Paul's wife passed away to. So the beginning of 1918 was bright and happy for us, followed with grievous consequences.

Brought in Weeds

As our land was newly broken, so we had no weeds yet, but immediate following years, brought us weeds disaster. As our crops in the district were often damaged by frost, not only wheat but oats too, so my brothers got a car load of pixty day oats (supposed to be early variety from one farmer at Hyas, Saskatoon and on behalf of the owner was selling to farmers for seeding their land, and also seeded themselves.

 I also bought this variety oats (being of very small kernels) and seeded on one parcel of land. Afterwards this portion of land was full of weeds, all kinds of yellow mustard, and French weed, or stink weed as it is called, because if cows will be pasteurized on this field, you won't be able to drink milk. So later from this parcel of land, the weeds spread to the whole farm, and also in later years we had all kinds of weeds; different thistles and wild oats etc.

Built another elevator in Cando

As we had only one elevator in our hamlet of Cando, (10 miles west of our place) so there was no competition and our grain was graded always lower than it should be, so it seemed to us there should be another elevator.

So there appeared some kind of agents with a Russian translator, traveling from farmer to farmer, promising to build a farmers elevator, and was eliciting money of one hundred dollars per share, so my father also took one share for $100.00 they did collect money, and really build an elevator, with the name of “Farmers club “but there was no easement for farmers, same poor grading and same shortage in weighing the grain.

Later this elevator was sold to Saskatoon Pool, and this was the end of Farmers club elevator and caput of their shares.

Bought a log house from brother Paul

My brother Paul made a deal with brothers Ivan and Eli, in obtaining their shares of land in section 17^th , so he built a house there and moved to live there, leaving his house vacant on his preemption (second homestead). So early in 1920 I bought his log house (16 x 22) for $125.00, and lowered to the ground, then dismantled walls, log by log, marking them and then transported the whole floor by the sleigh, and all the rest of the house to my bought quarter, northeast of section 18^th which afterwards was our permanent residence for many years.

Now I had to put it together again; first the floor was placed on the spot, where I wanted the house to be, and then walls were erected, placing marking logs one by one with moss or hay between ceiling 2x6 or 2x8 boards and some ????? from logs, were placed in its notched places, and then four parts of roof were drawn up one by one, and raised and nailed in its place. As I have dismantled chimney too, so now I had to rebuild it, and though I never done it before, always was willing to try.

So I scraped all the old clay from bricks and started to lay them one by one binding them with clay mixture, and though there were many half bricks, the chimney came out wonderfully well, because it served us for 10 years without any trouble. Next came the plastering, but before doing it, I nailed it diagonally inside and willow twigs outside. Then I was preparing clay mixture and my wife, mother and aunty Mrs. Zadko, who came to help us were plastering walls. After it was dry it was whitewashed on ceiling and thus ready for occupancy. Also nailed beaver board on ceiling.

Log chicken coop built

In wintertime as usual in all ventures previous and following alternatively either was hauling grain to Cando, or hauling firewood and logs for building. The same year with fathers help on my quarter was built a log chicken coop, roofed with shingles, which in spare time I was doing, and even brother Ivan when he visited us, climbed to the roof and help me to nail shingles. Though he was a Gospel minister, he always was willing to help manually to anybody in need.

Passing of our father

In 1921 father started to be indisposed and became ill and on June 2^nd, 1922 passed away, and was laid to rest on June 4^th at the cemetery plot on his own land.

Moving to our own place

Since our marriage we lived with parents 4 years and two months, but after seeding the land and father's funeral, the parents place was rented to Mr. Terentq Borisenka and we moved to our own place, taking mother with us in summer of 1922. Needless to say, there were lots of things to do, and lot of work to make this place suitable for habitation. First I dismantled and moved that big barn willed to me by father, and then had to erect again. Thanks to Mike Kulesh, when he was passing by, he saw me toiling hard, erecting it so he stopped and helped me to roll the logs in its place in the walls. As I took the roof apart, so had to be built in anew, nailing the boards to poplar rafters with a longer nails now, so the storm would not tore it away again. As the spot was low, so I had to raise it, first with stones and then with ground hauling my scraper. I placed the barn level in front with the chicken coop, so between buildings I made a garage yet. Luckily I made the fence around the pasture land before, so now I had where to put my cattle and horses.

Digging well

As we had no well yet, so late in the fall I hired Mr. Ignat Lewchenko, to dig one. He came one day with a boy helper, when I was away in Cando, and started to look for water with his magic willow, and found it as he said, exactly few feet in front of the building where the garage between barn and chicken coop and wanted to dig there, but my wife said “you better wait until my husband comes home.” When I came home, he told me and showed me the spot where the water is. I said to him that spot is not suitable for well to near to barn buildings, and showed him the spot where I wanted the well to be. Well he tried again his magic willow on the spot shown by me, and said there is water here too, but one spot pulls better so the water is shallower.

So he started to dig where I had shown him. Digging was done by hand, was 1 square hole 3 x 3 ft. and after a depth of 24 feet struck the water vein. The cribbing was made of 2 x 12 boards. So the good Lord blessed us with good and plenteous water, twelve feet of it never exhaustible. Later I bought and installed 4 inch wooden pump, made a shed and a water trough from big wheel of steam engine, cementing the ground at the bottom of the wheel.

Gradually we begin establishing ourselves in a new place of our own. In winter, besides fuel wood and willow pickets also was hauling logs and build a log granary. Also attached 8 x 16 porch to the house, so there will be protection from the wind. In 1925 not have much sown crop, just on this quarter where the house is; the east quarter of section 17, was all in summer fallow (95 acres)

In 1926 bought South East quarter of 19-39-14 from C.P.R. Co. on terms for 10 years, for $900.00 last payment for it in 1936. Got will in January 1937. This quarter consisted of only 127 acres, the most arable land I could make, only 50 acres the rest is pasture, for which I had to build barb wired fence.

After Mr. Lewchenko dug my well, my brother Paul hired him to take well for him too. Again he used his magic willow and said “here is water, it pulls hard so it shall be shallow water.” He started to dig, and dug 100 feet deep and the well was dry, then he admitted he didn't believe in that magic willow himself, but said that he thought that as water was shallow at my place, it will be shallow here too, as the place was lower yet than mine. Oh yeah speaking of my brothers dry well, somebody of them somehow dropped a big monkey wrench into that well, and nobody of a big family dared to go down the well of 100 feet to get it out.

One day when my four year old son Alex went to their place, they persuaded him to go down into that well to get that wrench. So they lowered him there by the ropes, but maybe on the half way, he got scared, so they pulled him out, and the wrench is still there to this present day.

Three years in a row of frozen crop

In 1926 standing crops were looking good and promised a good harvest, but the frost came so early as never before; usually it comes from 16^th-21^st of August but this mentioned year, it was on the night of 8^th of August, while the crops were in stage of filling up yet. The result? of course frozen crop. I went through the crops to inspect, and tried the kernels to squeeze them, and out of them comes a little speck of water, as assurance that it is frozen.

Well my heart felt the pinch of it all, but as we were used to it, so it was easier to take and hoping for better years to come. One Arelee farmer at that time travelled through our district and saw the frozen wheat, he said “if it was my crop frozen, I would go into the crop and shoot myself.” Well without hope, man is desperate, and this man for some unknown reason later hanged himself.

Can't recollect if that year's crop was bindered, harvested and stocked, and then burned, or burned on the stand, but it all went with a smoke, not a bushel of grain a year. Now for next year I have to buy my seed grain, and I decided to buy some barley and try my luck with it. Had to borrow money from one wealthier private man at 8% interest. So I bought barley someplace at Luningingdale and my seed wheat at D. Ackimenko, and obtained some bushels recently developed new variety wheat, supposed to be earlier maturing by the name “Garnet”

In the spring of 1927 I seeded  30 acres of barley, 18 acres of Garnet wheat, and the rest of my land with the commonly used wheat at that time namely Marquise. As usual all props were growing beautifully and again our hope was rewarded; maybe this year we will have a bountiful crop, maybe the frost will bypass us this year. But our hope was in vain. Same as previous year, the frost visited us exactly the same date, on the night of August 8^th and the result again frozen crop.

As the straw of Garnet wheat was green, so I cut it with mower, I thought it will be good feed for cattle, the other wheat I harvested with binder, but maybe there will be something yet and stooked it, but when it dried, there were only shrinked skin of a kernel, not fit for threshing. So I hauled that sheaves to the yard behind barn and stacked them to use as feed for cattle. The Garnet wheat that was mowed with a mower was consumed by fire. My 30 acres of barley was also frozen. It was a heavy crop for the straw, and I had to plow it down for fertilizing the land.

For 1928 again had to borrow money this time from the bank, signing a promissory note for $200.00 and again as each spring, had to put in my seed grain into the soil, expecting maybe this year they will be a better crop. That year I sowed my barley earlier than wheat, thinking: if wheat will be freeze again maybe I will have barley untouched by frost. Indeed I had some barley, but not very much, as it was very sparse and malt due to dry spell early in the spring.

Of course every year I sow oats, even if it's frozen and like chaff, but it is feed for horses. Concerning the wheat, the frost came on 16^th of August. So it was badly frozen again, but I threshed it, and had about 1200 bushels but it was utility grade known as feed wheat. So I sold it to the cattlemen for feed at .25 cents a bag. As I had rented some land, not very much arable land of my own in that year 1928 I rented (or leased?) on a share basis for Mortgage Co. quarter section of land 1 mile west, the one that S. Evadokimenko took at the homestead, but then abandoned, due to too much rocks, but later it was taken and there was about 55 acres broken but it turned into prairies again.

Once I seeded some acres of barley, but can't recollect if it was previous years or later. But that year there was no price for barley at elevator as the freight was higher than price for barley. And as I had in log bin without roof, I could not keep it due to rain, so I disposed of it to Arelee farmers one time, saying, when you will be able, so you will pay me what the price will be. So one farmer after lengthy period sent me 3 dollars, to others it was just a donation.

So that summer I had a tough time to cultivate that portion of land. I hired Nick Lupish to do the plowing and myself was busy daily at the blacksmith shop, sharpening and straightening plow shears. Due to strong soil, even Nick couldn't sit on the gang plow, was walking either behind or on the side of a plow. Though with a hard labor, soil was prepared for next year's crop. Stones were removed which was on the surface. In 1929 besides my own land, I seeded wheat on this prepared summer fallow, and packed with a land Packer, so all the left over small stones, were packed back into soil and the field was level and beautiful to look.

As always on the summer fallow due to rich soil crop grows big and tall and stays longer green, than the other fields. So it was with this field, it was thick and 4 ½ ft. high. When I harvested with a binder, I had to raise binder as high as it could go. So the stuffle was nearly knee high, and the sheaves hardly fitted into the binder. Due to high stubble and yet long sheaves it was hard to stook them, but Nick Lupish, who I always was hiring when I needed help was an agile lad, and always was doing job the best he could: so in this case he’d done the job well. For his capability I always was paying him more than regular wages.

“By the way, here I want to insert an incident in later years, when I hired two men for stooking sheaves. Besides their regular clothes they had underwear and pants, on top they donned overalls and jackets, then ripped two heavy bags I had from which sometimes I was making horse blankets, and made them into aprons and tied them around themselves, and went to stock. At night wind came in all the stocks were blown down.

The other day at breakfast, speaking of wages, they were curious to know, why I always pay more to Nick Lupish. Well without answering, I took them outside, and showed them their job of yesterday, then I told them “look, your job needs redoing again, which will cost me twice the price but when Nick Lupish does this job, not even one sheaf falls from the stoocks. That's why I pay him more, because he knows how to do the job well, and in reality it costs me less. Continuing again about the crop on rented land in 1929, it was threshed and yielded 30 bushels per acre, or exactly 1696 bushels. By the looks due to stand, it should yield more but as usual it was frozen, but not too bad. It was graded No. 4

After delivering their shared crop to company, I sold my share of crop, at .49 cents a bushel. As I rented for three years, I had one more year yet, but there was a buyer and the company wanted to sell, so when I just started to work on this land in the spring of 1930, the company sent me 50 dollars, and asked me to release them of the contract, and give them permission to sell. As the buyers was immigrant and his wife and son were members of our church Mr. Philipchuk so I consented just on behalf of this family, though I had the right to seed it another year, and the field was ready, just to burn the stubble and seed it, but I was merciful to others. Of course I had crop on my own land in 1929 but I have no record and can't recollect how much and how good, but I think it was not too bad.