What were your grandparents like?
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Enter Grandpa
My grandparents were very kind to me.
My grandfather was wise, clever, and could see the future. He raised chickens for eggs, he had milk cows for milk, he had all the normal crops, but he raised tomatoes for Campbell’s Soup. He sold fresh produce, such as strawberries and tomatoes, to local grocery stores. He sold eggs and produce to local grocery stores. He had peanuts in his garden, and roasted peanuts.I helped milk the cows. He sold milk to the Defiance milk company.
Grandpa gave a $10,000 gift to each of his children about 1950.
Grandpa gave beef and pork to my mother and father.
Grandpa liked sardines and herring. He liked smoked herring and pickeled herring. He would buy a large container of herring once a year. The container was a gallon or more of pickeled herring.
Grandpa had a Whippet car, which he didn’t drive, and a Fordson steel wheel farm tractor, which he didn’t use.
He set up the rule that only people with Wolfrum as their name could live in the Wolfrum home. Ralph inherited the farm, and was married to Martha. Ralph died, when he was about 49 years old. Martha lived in the Wolfrum home, and took in a partner,she couldn’t marry the partner, because it would change her Wolfrum name; removing her from the home. Martha lived there for about 40 years after Ralph died. She died when she was 85.
Grandma Wolfrum was a good cook. She would tell me to get her a chicken. I would, and she would cook it. One time I butchered a mud turtle, and gave it to her. She cooked it, and wanted more turtles. She prepared dandelions for greens quite often. She had asparagus plants, also. She had horseradish plants in her garden. Grandma made sugar cookies topped with one hickory nut. They were softer than commercial sugar cookies. She baked cookies about once a week. Her recipes were secret. Grandma Wolfrum fell down steps in the JC Penny store in Defiance, Ohio and died. Andy was waiting in the car outside the store. He commented that any legal actions wouldn’t bring her back.
Ladies were invited to Grandma’s house to make quilts. Several women would be invited to her house, and they would sew on quilts.
Workers would enjoy Grandma’s meals at her house. There were quite a few workers, who ate Grandma’s meals, at wheat harvest time.
I carried water in jugs to the workers in the fields.
Grandma Layne rotated living with her children. Her husband had died before I was born. She spent the majority of her time with her son Ollie, who lived in Defiance, Ohio. She made and sold quilts. She made good biscuits too. If I remember correctly, she received Old Age Pension; $8 a month.
Grandma Layne baked biscuits on our wood burning kitchen stove.
My mother prepared most of our meals on the wood burning kitchen stove. She made pancakes, buckwheat pancakes, fried potatoes, potatoes with scrambled eggs, crepes, etc.
My mother canned peaches every year. She bought the peaches from an orchard several miles away. She usually bought two bushels of peaches. She would put a half peach with a seed in it in cans of peaches. She only did it in one out of ten cans. The peaches in the can with the seeded peach had a different flavor.
Images of catalpa trees in Andy Wolfrum's yard:https://youtu.be/d_sh2KyNzQw
