This article was published in the Evening Leader Extra Merchandiser on Wednesday, August 25, 1999, after a New Knoxville Historical Society interview with six elderly citizens of the New Knoxville area. We have added some notes following each segment of the interview to clarify the locations of farms, homes, terminology, etc..
NK residents share memories at historical society meeting
By Katy Gilbert
NEW KNOXVILLE—Sitting in the shade of the oldest tree in town on the lawn of New Knoxville’s Historic Tri-Building complex, I listened to farm stories of the past. Six men whose ages sum up approximately 500 years of experiences in the past 100 were answering questions and telling their stories.
The event was the New Knoxville Historical Society Farm Heritage Days and Tom Fledderjohann introduced the panel of participants: Ferd Meckstroth, Silas Lammers, Elmer Henschen, Reuben Henschen, Harold Wietholter and Victor Fledderjohann.
Tom and Diane had a list of prepared questions which included:
- Where did you live as a young boy?
- Where did you attend school? How did you get there? How far was the school from your house?
- Do you have a funny story or did something special happen during your school years that you would like to tell us about?
- What type of farm chores did you do when you were a young person on the farm?
- When you married, did you move to a farm?
- Did you do field work with horses? What type of field work? What type of horses? How many horses did you have? Was there a separate horse to pull the buggy? Do you have any unusual stories about the farm animals or pets?
Victor Fledderjohann was born in Washington Township. “Started first grade in New Knoxville,” he said. “Course we walked to school then, we stopped at Meckstroths and picked up “Strawberry” Lawrence Meckstroth and his sister and come on to school.”
When he started school at New Knoxville it was the first year the school had indoor toilets. “That was a big deal, big time stuff!”
In the 1930’s the Fledderjohanns moved to SR 219. His sister drove the horse and buggy with about two or three others. While in school, she left the horse in a barn owned by Ferd Meckstroth’s father. Ferd Meckstroth then quipped, “the rent for the stall was paid by the manure the horse produced.”
Fledderjohann said he had farm chores by the time he was five and worked for 60 years after that. “My first job of driving horses was to load hay. They had a hay loader on the back of the wagon and I was the kid who drove the horses. I had a little backstop there so they wouldn’t throw hay on my head,” he said. “I also plowed and worked the ground with the horses. We had a walking and a riding plow. My dad and I both plowed but would change off plows once in a while. We always had four work horses and one buggy horse. We never did raise any colts. We had a tractor in 1926. It was a Samson and we bought it from Elmer Katterheinrich. Then in 1927 we bought a 10-20 International.”
Fledderjohann said when he and his wife were first married they lived with his parents. His parents were building a house in town and in a few months moved out to their new home. Fledderjohann and his wife lived on the farm until they retired.
NOTE: The place where Victor Fledderjohann was born is located at 9686 East Shelby Road, and the Meckstroth farm where he met Lawrence Meckstroth and his sister on the way to school is located just to the south at 6027 New Bremen-New Knoxville Road. The hay loader he mentioned was a device which was pulled behind the wagon to pick up the hay and drop it on the wagon, after which it was worked to the front of the wagon and stacked with pitchforks. The farm to which Victor and his parents moved, and where he lived until retirement is located at 04238 State Route 219, just west of the canal.
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Ferd Meckstroth, who will be 100 years old in November, shared his story next. “I was born in New Knoxville in 1899 and lived there until I was six years old. I went to school in New Knoxville for two months, and my teacher’s name was Miss Stueve. We moved and I finished the year at Poppe School on Plattner Pike with Ernst Holtkamp as my teacher. At that time it was customary for teachers to give a box of candy to the kids for Christmas. Well, as I said, when I started school I had Miss Stueve for two months then changed schools and ended up with Ernst Holtkamp. At Christmas time Ernst Holtkamp gave me a box of candy, then handed me another box and said ‘this is from Miss Stueve.’ That was the high point of my school year, cause candy was scarce and I got two boxes.”
“I then finished my grades at Wierwille School. In 1913 I went to high school at the old Town Hall in New Knoxville. They only had three years of high school, so that’s what I had. Meckstroth goes on to say his after school jobs were filling the wood boxes and cleaning up the barn. As he got older he helped in the fields too, plowing or harrowing, whatever had to be done. “We always had three horses, that’s all we ever farmed with. Dad never had a tractor.”
When Ferd was 22 he moved to town and got a car, but he said he remembers when there were no cars around. People walked, rode a bicycle, or used a horse and buggy. When he married they lived with his parents before moving next to the creek and the Legion Hall. Later he bought the house where he lives now.
NOTE: The Poppe school is located at 10990 Plattner Pike near the east end of Poppe Road, and it is now used as a residence. The house he referred to as “next to the creek and the Legion Hall is probably the house at 302 East Spring Street. The house they bought and in which he lived in at the time of the interview is located at 201 South St. Marys Street.
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Harold Wietholter began his talk by jokingly stating he didn’t know how he got over this way (New Knoxville). He was born in 1917 on a farm between New Bremen and Chickasaw. “If you’re heading towards Chickasaw and you see a big cedar tree in the middle of the field, that’s where the home had been,” Wietholter said, before sharing a story about a church. “When it was cold, Mom would get bricks and heat them in the oven. Then before we’d hitch ‘Old Nelly’ up, we’d wrap the bricks in rags and carry them out with us to keep our feet warm. My brother and I would sit between Mom and Pop to keep warm on the way to St. Peters.”
Wietholter went to the school located near Stamco. “There was a high school there too but it was torn down before the elementary.” Wietholter said he could run like a deer and he usually ran the mile and half to school. “Most everyone carried marbles and we played them a lot.”
“After school I filled the wood boxes and milked the cows. And to answer the question of how many horses they had, “we had four work horses and ‘Old Nelly’ who took us to church.”
Wietholter tells us why he never took up smoking. “I was 15 and helping my brother-in-law shock corn. He was a big chewer. He’d take a big chew, pass it on to me and tell me (in German) to take a big chew. It was September, kinda’ hot and we were cutting corn. We’d cut corn for a while, stop, take a chew, he’d tell me to take a bigger one, so I did. I kept chewin’ away and first thing you know things were spinnin’ around and I was laying on the corn shocks. When I came to, he was laughing at me. So, maybe that was a good thing. I’ve never had a cigarette in my mouth and maybe that was a good cure.”
Wietholter met his wife on the street in New Knoxville in 1940. They were married and lived in New Bremen the first six months they were married. “We bought hamburger for 25 cents a pound and since we didn’t have a refrigerator we kept it in the basement where it was cooler. When I started working at Hoge’s we moved to New Knoxville. We lived with Caroline Holtkamp, and then Henry Opperman until we built our home. Now we’re back in New Bremen.
NOTE: The Caroline Holtkamp house Mr. Wietholter mentions in the interview located at 108 West German Street, and the Henry Opperman house is at 301 East Bremen Street. The home they built and in which they raised their family is located at 300 Botkins Angle Road.
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Silas Lammers tells us that his great-grandfather bought the farm in 1848 and it has been in the family ever since. His parents were married in 1907 and moved to Colorado. His grandfather developed tuberculosis in 1911 and asked Lammers’ parents to come back home to take care of the farm. “They moved back in November, 1911 and I was born in January, 1912, remarked Lammers, that shows I was conceived in Colorado and born in New Knoxville.”
Lammers tells us that he went to Brookside school, two miles east of New Knoxville. He’d walk through “Ducky” Feldwisch’s field and if the weather was fit he’d ride a bicycle. He drove a horse and buggy to high school and kept the horse in Grandpa Fledderjohann’s barn. Grandpa would gather all the leaves in the neighborhood and put them in the stall for bedding.” Later years he drove a Model T sedan to school.
“One day some other boys and I got caught playing marbles,” said Lammers. “F. A. Grewe caught us, and boy did he gives a lecture on gambling. He said we’d go straight to hell for gambling. We couldn’t play marbles anymore cause he took all our marbles and put them in a jar. Years later when they settled his estate, they had about a half of a gallon of marbles that he collected from us boys. They sold for $40 dollars and I didn’t get them.”
Lammers had another school story to share. “One day, when I was a first grader at Brookside School, the county Superintendent came by. He told us because we were at war with Germany, nobody could talk German anymore. So at recess time me and some other boys talked German. One of the other boys ran into school and told the teacher Adella Rodeheffer. After recess, we had to march to the front of the class because we had talked German. The rest of the class had to say to us, shame, shame on you for talking German!”
Lammers said when he got home from school he’d change clothes and eat some crackers and an apple. When he finished the apple He’d throw down the core for his dog. His chore was to climb the silo and throw down one shovelful of silage for each cow, and every morning and evening he had two or three cows to milk. “We had eight work horses and one buggy horse,” said Lammers. When the women had to go to town they would take the buggy horse. It was said to be fastest horse around. Nobody would race against it.” Lammers goes on to say that in his day a gang plow was a horse drawn, riding plow, pulled by four and sometimes five horses. He could plow twice the amount of ground that he could with an ordinary team. “We were farming 200 acres with horses,” said Lammers, “and in 1918 or 1919 we bought a Fordson tractor. It had a two bottom Oliver plow behind it.” When Lammers and his wife were married, they moved in with his parents. His parents moved to town after 21 years.
NOTE: Silas Lammers’ home farm is located at 08609 Southland Road. The Brookside School was a one-room brick schoolhouse situated two miles east of New Knoxville in the northwest corner of the intersection of State Route 219 and Bay Road. The “Ducky” Feldwisch farm is located at 09443 Bay Road.
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Elmer Henschen said he was born and raised on Holtkamp Road. He attended the school where the Hoge Brush Factory now stands. “We had outdoor toilets. A group of Henschen kids walked to school together. Miriam and Margaret and the William Henschen family came to Ben Henschen’s lane, then to our lane, then we’d pick up ‘Shorty’ Henschen and walk on to school.”
“One day I woke up with a toothache, Mom would bathe it in warm or cold water, but nothing else was done. Next morning we cleaned up the horse, got out the buggy, hitched up the horse and went to Doc Wright’s office in St. Marys. We stood in line there, next…next…and so on. Pop went with me and I sat in the chair. Doc filled the tooth and told Pop, ‘It’s all done now, that’ll be $1.00 and don’t eat for an hour.’ We went downstairs to the horse and buggy and Papa said in Low German, ‘You shouldn’t eat for an hour, but we’ll stop at the grocery and get some bananas, you don’t have to chew them much.’ But isn’t that something! He filled it for $1.00.”
Henschen’s chores included filling the wood boxes and helping with milking. But at haying time he had a special job. Since he was the tallest of the boys he was behind the hay loader or in the mow. “That’s where they needed me.” Henschen also did some farming with a walking and a riding plow. They usually had three horses and a buggy horse. We also broke in some horses. Henschen tells the following story. “Grandpa Henschen made a land roller to break down the clods. One day they sent me out to roll out the land and break in a horse. I was out in the middle of the field when the horse in the middle just fell over and died. Old man Shorty who lived across the road, came running, my family came running and we unhitched so we could get the roller around the dead horse. Then we hitched the colt in the center in place of the dead one and finished rolling the land. That was an experience I’ll never forget and the help we got from Shorty was wonderful.”
Henschen said when he and his wife were married they lived with his parents for a few months before moving to Gus Hoge’s house on Main Street.
NOTE: The building where the Hoge Brush factory was located, which was the former New Knoxville School building, is located at 202 East South Street. Elmer Henschen’s home place is located at 6471 Holtkamp Road. The other Henschen families he named all lived on or at the west end of that road. The William Henschen family lived at 10545 East Shelby Road, the Ben Henschen family at 6159 Holtkamp Road, and the Herman A. “Shorty” Henschen family at 6584 Holtkamp Road. As was customary in New Knoxville, Alfred Henschen inherited the nickname “Shorty” from his father.
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Reuben Henschen remembers that when he was in school, every six weeks the county tests would come all rolled up. His teacher at the time would hand the test to the students and tell them how to “work the whole business.” Then he’d say, ‘Now go work on them.’ That would make his teaching look pretty good. “One day, the teacher called out one boy for misbehaving and told him to sit in front. The boy stood and looked up and down at himself and said, ‘I’m not made to sit in front.’”
Henschen said he was born in 1919, the same place Elmer was, north of town on Holtkamp Road. “I went to school all 12 years in New Knoxville, and by golly I never did walk to school. Shorty (Alfred Henschen) or somebody at my place, we always had a ride. I graduated in 1937 and a good friend of mine, Willis Fledderjohann, did too. We both came to school in a Model T. We’d crank it up…goose it a little, and away we would go, home. And just before we’d get to Shorty Henschen’s lane, I would put the old spark plug up and bing…bing…bing…just like the Fourth of July.”
His chores were to fill the woodboxes for heating and cooking stoves, and always had a lot of cows to milk. Then when the milking was done they had to carry the milk to the separating room. “We separated all the milk. Didn’t sell the milk until the 30’s. By golly, one thing my dad found out after we started selling the milk. The skim milk didn’t go to the hogs and I tell you, those hogs wouldn’t grow. Now people drink skim milk. Used to be for the hogs, it’s true.”
Henschen only remembers one team of horses, plus Old Nelly. “She would pull a sleigh or the hay in the mow, she was a real good horse,” said Henschen. “The only time I plowed was when I was real young and my dad was mad at me. He made me plow the garden with a walking plow. It was the first time I had ever done that; it was a rough day. I’m telling you it was hard work because I didn’t know how.”
“But I did a lot of grass mowing, hay tedding, wheat binding, corn binding and drove a lot of horses. I didn’t care that much for horses. I liked the tractor. Dad didn’t think we could get along without the horses, but I wanted to rid of the horses for a long time. The horse could do some of the same things as a tractor, but then again, if the tractor wasn’t doing anything, it wasn’t eating either. Couldn’t say that about horses.
Henschen said when he and his wife were married they lived upstairs at his parents. When they found out they were going to have a little one they moved downstairs to make it easier on his wife. Three years later they moved to her folks’ farm about three miles west and is still there.
It was a fun afternoon in New Knoxville listening to the stories and eating the food served by Lil Wierwille, Martha Settlage and Joanna Kruse. I want to be there when they do this again. Maybe I’ll get to hear some of the ladies share their stories the next time.
NOTE: Reuben’s friend Willis Fledderjohann lived at 9686 East Shelby Road. The Model T he mentioned was a car manufactured by Ford from 1909 to 1927. The early models were started with a hand crank, and the later ones were equipped with electric starters. When he mentioned goosing it a little, that referred to using the choke to richen the fuel mixture for a cold engine. A lever located on the steering column allowed the driver to retard the spark timing for starting. This is what he referred to when he said he “put the old spark plug up”, causing the engine to backfire. The farm to which he and his wife moved is located at 04687 Southland Road.