Soups on: One winter night on Uncle Henry's farm Dad served up one of his unique multiple bean soups for dinner. (I'm not sure how Dad got to be cook for the evening, but he never needed much encouragement in the kitchen).

Roger just could not deal with the thought of eating any more of Dad's home made soups, so he disappeared to the basement until after dinner. Dad never let rejections of his unique dishes deter him. He was still serving up his dishes even after Mom and Dad retired and moved to town. Your mother even got to experience a bowl of the soup one-day in 1975. Dad served up a big bowl and placed it in front of your Mom, sat down next to her, looked her right in the eye, and said "it's really good isn't it Mary?" What is a person to do? I wasn't there to sample the soup but I would bet it had an egg in it. That was always the last ingredient when he had run out of all other ingredients.

Rise and Shine: My favorite meal has always been early morning breakfast. It all started when I was living at home. I would wake up early, as I still do, and could hear breakfast starting before I could smell it. The first breakfast sounds on the farm were the cobs being placed in the old coal stove and the sounds of the iron lids on the stovetop being removed and laid on top of the stove. The stove lids being placed back over the fire soon followed that sound. About 10 minutes later I could hear Mom put the old iron skillets on the stove. Next came the wonderful aroma of bacon or sausage and the smell of coffee and toast. I get hungry just thinking about it.

I'm still waiting, after all these years, for the medical profession to declare that bacon and eggs are really wonderful for our health and that everyone should eat more of them. Oh well, maybe in your lifetime.

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Sunday Visitors: Mealtimes were always pretty quiet despite the table full of kids. We boys did a lot of yelling, fighting and wrestling but did none of those things at mealtime. We knew better.

Mom and Dad did most of the talking. The topics were typical for farm couples. They included talk about the farm, crops, school, relatives, friends and neighbors. The other common subject for farmers was always the weather. This is not unusual when you remember how dependent farmers are on good weather.

I don't remember having many guests for dinner, except during thrashing season. Grandma Weber and Grandma Arteman would both spend a few days once or twice a year. Another occasional visitor was Dad's longtime friend, Dory Sawyer. He always brought vegetables from his truck farm, but Mom always believed his motivation for a visit was Sunday dinner.

Home on the Range: Summertime meals on the farm often lasted several hours for Mom because of our work schedules. This was primarily during planting and harvesting times. When I think about it, there were days when Mom hardly ever got out of the kitchen. She never complained about it that I remember. Perhaps the reason she didn't was that all of the Webers, and especially Dad, loved to eat.

Mom's real specialty was making pies and cakes. It was really quite remarkable when one remembers that the cooking and baking was done on a stove fired by wood and coal. I'm not sure how she controlled the temperature of the oven and kept it even. Nearly all the food Mom prepared originated from the feed lots, the chicken house, or the garden. That included the meats, eggs, vegetables and even some of the fruits.

One of our winter treats was ice cream that Mom made from fresh snow. I'm not sure how she made it, but it was really good.

Meals on Wheels: Typically, our family ate three meals in the kitchen, but in the Spring, Summer, and Fall seasons Mom would often prepare and deliver snacks to the field. These extra lunches were generally during spring and summer fieldwork. During harvesting season Mom often brought special goodies out to us along with a cold drink or coffee.

In earlier times, when farmers were still trashing oats, Mom would also prepare lunches and snacks, not just for the Webers, but also for the neighbors who were helping. Mom never complained about these extras. I think it was because she enjoyed the afternoon visits to the fields almost as much as we did. I'm sure Mom got lonely with everyone in the fields most of the daylight hours each day.

Fried Chicken: I'm not sure where the tradition of fried chicken for Sunday dinner originated, but quite often that was the meat served at our house on Sunday.

After we got home from church late Sunday mornings, Mom would often ask one of us boys to go out and get two or three fryers. A fryer was a young 2 to 3 pound chicken. After catching the chicken, three steps were required to prepare the bird. The first was to kill it. My method was to wring the chicken's neck. Others used a hatchet. The second step was to dip the deceased bird into a bucket of very hot water, to make it easier to remove the feathers. It only took two or three minutes to pluck the chicken if the water was good and hot. The last step was left to Mom, and that was cleaning and cutting up the chicken into pieces. In the olden days you could still recognize the legs, breast, thighs or back pieces after the chicken was dressed.

Today, with all the modern equipment used in commercially packaging chickens for sale, you can't always tell what pieces you are eating just by looking. The other major differences in chickens then and now is in the abundance of fat in today's chickens. During my youth, the chickens were allowed to run all over the chicken yard and much of the feed included corn. The result was there was very little fat. Today's chickens are raised in an enclosed chicken house. They are force fed with feeds developed to mass-produce chickens for market in as short a period of time as possible. The end result is a much heavier chicken with layers of fat. Modern technology is wonderful but I much prefer eating farm-raised chickens prepared in an old iron skillet.

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Little Big Books: When I was 12, Mom's brother John gave us kids a box of Little Big Books. They probably had belonged to John's two sons, Bob and Gerry. These were neat books that I'm sure would be very valuable today. They were about 4 1/2 inches high and 4 inches wide and a few inches thick. They may have been the forerunners to today's paperbacks, except they were a different size. They also may have been introduced about the same time as comic books, although I don't recall us kids ever having comic books.

The books we were given ranged from westerns to detective stories. They were about the only books in our library, other than the dictionary and school textbooks. They were a welcome change. I can still recall parts of some of the stories, so they must have really impressed me. Too bad my textbooks didn't capture my attention to the same degree. Otherwise, I may have graduated sooner.

My Checkered Past: When Grandma Arteman came to visit we always got out the Chinese checkers, which was her favorite game. I didn't care too much for the Chinese version of checkers but I'd always play Grandma. I'm not sure of all the rules but the primary objective was to get all your marbles to the opposite side of the board and in home place before your opponent. I remember when 4 or 5 people played; there was a real traffic jam in the center of the board. Almost like driving on Veterans Parkway between the two Malls on a Saturday afternoon.

The Bouncing Babe: We didn't have very many toys so when Terry came along, he became the perfect toy. Kenny, Roger and I treated him like a Teddy Bear. We would go into the living room and throw him back and forth between us like a rubber ball. He and we would laugh with glee while Mom would be yelling 'Stop throwing that baby around'.

Puzzles Anyone: One of Mom's favorite passtimes was sitting at the card table and working picture puzzles. It must have been catching because I can remember all of us kids joining in. In fact, I still work a puzzle now and then.

The card table would be set up in the living room in the wintertime next to the stove so it was always nice and warm. The downside was at night there wasn't enough light from the old kerosene lamp to see very well. The living room was about the only place to do puzzles because the dining room table was used for homework. The dining room was also our "entertainment center". It had a large, freestanding, radio. Well, what did you expect… a TV, CD player, Ping-Pong table and a PC?

Ouch: Another family game that we often played was caroms. It is similar to pool, except the caroms used were small wooden circle pieces that were propelled by flicking them with your index fingernail. The wooden board had four pockets, one in each corner much like a pool table, except the carom board was only three-foot square.

The object of the game was the same as pool… to eventually shoot all your caroms into one of the pockets before your opponent could get his off the board. It wasn't as easy as it sounds because the primary carom was a shooter (the same as the cue ball in pool) and you had to use it to hit the other caroms and knock them into the pocket.

The old carom board was still in the farmhouse when Mom and Dad retired in 1973. I don't know what ever happened to it, but I would love to have a dollar of every game of caroms I played.

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Sunday Servings: When we started attending church at St. Joseph's at Colfax, the pastor was Fr. Motsett, a wonderful priest who was always upbeat and very energetic. Everyone liked him, and he was particularly good to us altar boys. I became an altar boy shortly after we started attending church in Colfax. I remember one year he took us altar boys to Chicago's Wrigley Field for a baseball game and swimming in Lake Michigan.

Today Fr. Motsett is now 91 years old. He retired as pastor of a small church in Farmer City and now lives in Danville, Illinois. He was always a very good friend of our family. I remember him stopping in once in a while to see mom when she was in Bromenn Long Term Center on Main Street in Bloomington.

Hoe-down: For a 13-year-old, the square dances in Cooksville were a special night out. They were held upstairs in a building that housed the local Telephone Company. The hall would hold about 75 to 100 people and would be filled with kids and adults. The kids would sit around the outside walls and mostly laughed and told dumb jokes. Three or four musicians generally provided the music for the square dance. There were one or two fiddlers and a piano or guitar player. Square dancing also required a caller. The caller reminded me of an auctioneer. He talked fast and could rarely be understood. His job was to instruct the dancers on their next 'move'.

One of my distant cousins, Betty Ellen Weber, helped teach me to square dance. She had endless patience and a great sense of humor. I'm sure she probably still suffers from foot problems because I spent as much time on hers as on my own. In spite of that she still speaks to me and remains one of my favorite cousins. Oh how I miss those exciting nights in Cooksville.

The High Flyer: Sundays were unique for two reasons. First because of church and second because most of our company on the farm came on Sunday afternoon or evening. Generally they were relatives.

Mabel and Sherm were frequent visitors. Sherm was a kite flyer and a pigeon shooter so he loved to come to the farm. Mable and Sherm were both very fond of Mom and Dad. Sherm was the most avid and imaginative kite flyer I have ever known. One Sunday he arrived with a kite and several large balls of twine. He eventually used almost one mile of twine on that single kit. It had disappeared from the site long before he used the last balls of twine. When he got ready to reel in the kite, he jacked up his car, took off one of the rear wheels, started the engine, placed it in gear, tied the twine around the wheel axle, and wheeled in the kite. I've never heard of that before or since. The pigeons he shot, he'd take home with him and dress them for pigeon stew or soup. (I'm still not sure just how you dress a pigeon).

Other Sunday visitors included Mom's sister Marguerite Wiese and her husband, Art. Sometimes they'd bring all or part of their family of ten children along… wow! I also remember Joe and Mary Arteman visiting as well as Dad's brother Basil and his wife Agnes.

I'm Walkin: If you were fortunate enough in the 40s and 50s to have access to a car you probably headed for Colfax on Saturday nights. Nearly everyone in their teen years who lived within 10 or 15 miles ended up in town.

Colfax still had a movie theater, a drug store with a soda fountain, a couple of restaurants, and a couple of bars (which I was never in), and a bowling alley, although I don't ever remember bowling. There was also a public hall on Main Street where dances were held. These were the things that attracted everyone to the big city.

Kenny, Marilyn (on occasion), and myself would pile into Dad's car and head for town. Upon arrival, I'd get out and meet some friends and we would walk the sidewalks in downtown Colfax. The downtown was really only about a block and a half long. By 7:30 the sidewalks were filled with mostly teens, walking up one side and down the other side of Main Street. Only an occasional visit or stop at the soda fountain for chips or popcorn interrupted the walk. Then the walking would resume much like a procession of migrating gnus. But, come next Saturday, we'd all once again look forward to another night on the town.

Corny Belters: During the summer months from about 1947 to 1953 I played baseball almost every Sunday for Cooksville in the original Corn Belt league. It consisted of several small McLean County towns and later Bloomington also had a team. The small towns were Cooksville, Leroy, Elsworth, Arrowsmith, Downs and Anchor.

The teams were made up of players ranging in age from 15 to 45. I started pitching for Cooksville the summer before my sophomore year at St. Bede. Kenny was our best player and hitter. He played third base. Our manager was Wilbur Fitzgearld and his son John (who was my best man at our wedding) played first base.

Cooksville won the league championship about 5 of the 6 years I played with them. I finished my career when we moved to Birmingham, Alabama in 1954. It was fun playing and we always had good crowds at the game. There were no bleachers so most people sat in their cars along the first and third base lines of the field. Others would bring blankets and sit on the ground.

I'm not sure if the baseball field is still in Cooksville. I doubt it, but if it is, it would be about 1/4 mile east of town.

A Weekend Splash: Saturdays were bath days for all of us kids. Mom would heat water on the kitchen stove and fill a big wash tub and set it in the middle of the kitchen. We each took our bath and went to bed.

Sundays were church days followed by Sunday School after Mass. For many years we attended mass at Saint Pats of Merna and later at St. Joe in Colfax. I remember all the 'church regulars' had their own family pews with their own nameplate. You didn't dare sit in the wrong pew. Sundays were also reserved for visiting family and friends. I looked forward to going or having one of the two grandmas visit us. Sometimes Grandma Weber would spend a week or two with us. She would mend all the socks and sow something new for one or all of us kids. Grandma Weber was always my favorite… warm, gentle and always happy… just like Dad. Grandma Arteman was also very, very good to us, and always pleasant, but generally more reserved.

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Reunions: When I was young, most families still held annual summer reunions. The Weber family always met at Towanda Park. The Arteman's and Pfeifer's always met at Miller Park in Bloomington.

Family reunions were one of the big social events of the year. For the young, it was a day of fun playing with cousins, swinging and sliding, and playing in the dirt. Not much different from today when small children get together at the park. For teenagers, not nearly so much fun (also like today). Even when you got to see your cousins, aunts, uncles, etc. every year, you still got plenty of those comments that caused you to grit your teeth, like 'oh my, how you've grown' or 'who did you say you belong to?', or 'you look more like Walter every day', or 'speak up Sonny… I can't hear you'. And another, 'Duane who?'.

If you could endure all the dumb questions though, the food was always great. After everyone had eaten, the affair would begin to suddenly resemble a segregationist convention, with all the women in one group, the men in another, the teens disoriented and in despair, small-unattended children running everywhere. But, it didn't make much difference because no one has ever become permanently lost in Towanda!

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A Rose Among The Thorns: Nearly every Christmas time, the Artemans would assemble at one of the family member's homes. I can recall going to John and Louise's, at Barnes, and later on South Main Street. One of the last gatherings was held at Jim and Loretta's house on East Oakland Ave., about 3/4 of a mile east of Veterans Parkway. Their house was the second one built on the south side of Oakland, east of Veterans.

The Christmas gatherings were primarily an excuse for the men to play poker. The gathering was like an instant replay each year. The men all in one room, generally encircling the kitchen table, and the women elsewhere in the house. The only exception to the rule was Loretta. She always remained seated right at Uncle Jim's elbow. I assumed that was to make sure Jim didn't lose too much money (she liked money), or control of his faculties (she counted his drinks). I had also been informed that she never felt comfortable around her female in-laws (she didn't like them).

The Christmas ritual ended when I was about 17 and was replaced years later by Joe Arteman's annual July picnic and Poker game on North Linden in Normal.

Social Events: In between the annual family reunions, church socials, the other social events of the year were funerals and weddings. Today the funeral wake usually consists of signing a register, greeting family member of the deceased, pausing at the coffin, and leaving; a total elapsed time of 15 or 20 minutes. In the olden days wakes were almost like a family reunion and lasted several hours. I recall the Carmody and Flynn funeral homes both had basements filled with sofas and overstuffed chairs. All the men would end up in the basement smoking and talking. It was also common to see a large number of people at the funeral service the next day at church.

Weddings were also different than today, although they were big social events in the old days too. The big difference, in my opinion, is that in the old days someone other than the photographer was in charge of the wedding ceremony. Maybe that was because people getting married back then could not afford more than a couple hours of photos. The other big difference may have been the invitees could not afford to buy more than 2 or 3 drinks before the wedding party showed up at the reception. So, they probably would have all gone home before the reception started. Oh well, just a problem I have. I have never thought the photographer's roll in weddings should last as long as some of the marriages.

 Christmas: Christmas included the usual fresh cut tree and lots of presents, even when times weren't so good. The Christmas Eve highlight was Santa's arrival, always carried out by Kenny or myself. We'd disappear from the living room gift activities long enough to slip out to the front porch where we would leave Santa's gifts, create a terrible commotion, give out a few ho-ho's before slipping in the back door. Donna and Terry thought this was just wonderful and still believed in Santa at age 17 or 18 (just kidding… they both stopped believing at about 15).

Lent: The season of Lent meant giving up something. For us kids, the something always seemed to be candy. I'm not sure why, because I don't remember us having much candy. But on the other hand, maybe it wasn't such a bad idea. During lent, what candy we did come by was put into our very own paper sack and hidden away until Easter. By the time Easter arrived, we were in a frenzy to get at our stockpiles. On Easter morning, our stockpile grew even larger after Mom and Dad's contribution. Mom would dye lots of chicken eggs and place them into baskets for each of us kids, along with the usual collection of jelly beans and candy eggs.  

It was always a feast, but I always saved room for Mom's traditional Easter Ham dinner with all the trimmings. Dessert was typically one of Mom's special pies.

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Cheer Leader: Mom was always supportive of us kids in everything we did and accomplished. That included everything from sports to school grades. I remember mom gave me a photo album when I got married that contained news clippings of all my high school baseball games and later, the clippings from the Pantagraph of the baseball games I played at Cooksville and in the Muni league in Normal. I didn't even know she had been saving all the articles. I am sorry to say that all of these records have been lost in our many moves. I believe Mom made an album like this for all of us kids.

I can remember how happy and shocked Mom was when she found out I had made the honor roll at St. Bede in my first semester in 1946. I didn't make it because it was easy for me. Rather, it was those two to three hour strict, compulsory study halls every day that did it.

She was even more pleased when her little 'Waynie" got a good conduct medal his freshman year. I think she may have thought the school records were fouled up and they gave it to the wrong guy, or that maybe they had one left over and didn't know what to do with it.

Blooms: Besides Mom's housekeeping chores she was nearly always our chauffeur. I can remember she would buy all the groceries we needed, take us kids to school when needed, to doctor appointments, summer CD classes in Merna, etc. I can also remember on occasion Mom would even drive the tractor to and from the fields.

Mom enjoyed flowers and would plant lots of spring flowers and fill vases and containers with the typical hardy summer flowers. Every spring she would rake the leaves that had collected around her day lilies in front of the house along the fence. She would also have fresh flowers in the house during the growing season. Mom never lost her interest in and love for flowers even after the folks retired and moved to Sheridan Ave. in Normal.

Walking The Walk: Life on the farm was difficult for Mom. She once said that by the time she had a bathroom, electric lights, a washer and dryer, and many of the modern conveniences, she no longer needed any of them. Mom was certainly right in her opinion. It was about 1947 when we got electricity on the farm. Raising six children is difficult even with modern conveniences.

The absence of electricity and running water impacted every task of a housewife. You couldn't take a bath, prepare a meal, wash clothes, brush your teeth or read a book, without some prior preparation. The water had to be carried in from the well in the barnyard, heated on a stove, fired by coal stored in an outside shed. The lamps had to be filled with kerosene. Everything became a chore requiring lots of extra effort.

Besides preparing meals, one of Mom's time consuming chores was washing clothes. It took the entire day to complete and that didn't include all the ironing. On the Baby Fold farm, there was a wash house just behind the house. It was large enough to hold the washing machine, wash tubs, and an old stove that Mom would use to heat the water. In winter the stove also kept the wash house from freezing inside. When the clothes were washed and run through the ringer to remove the excess moisture, Mom would hang them out behind the wash house. The clothes were hung there winter or summer, regardless of temperature. In the winter, they would freeze dry. There was no space in the house to hang them to dry. It makes today's wash days seem pretty easy.

Aches and Pains: During my high school days, and later when I was in college, Mom developed some health problems. I wasn't home very often during those years, but I remember Mom going frequently to an arthritis clinic in Ottowa, Illinois. She would sometimes stay two or three days at a time. I don't think they were ever able to help her much with the pain, because she suffered with arthritis for most of her life. All those years of hanging clothes outside in the middle of winter didn't help her arthritis.

At the same time, Mom developed some eye problems. She often complained of spots floating around in her eye. I've since heard that this is not uncommon. Oh well, if I have the problem it will only effect sight in one eye… hopefully the one I don't see out of… come to think of it, maybe I already have the problem and just don't know it.

Good Example: Perhaps one of Mom's greatest traits was that she let us kids grow as individuals. She provided guidance and advice and yet she didn't constantly nag us or dictate everything we did. In that regard, Mom and Dad were very similar.

Here are two examples. The first has to do with manners. I really don't remember Mom or Dad spending much time discussing manners, and yet I think all the Weber children had good manners. It must have been because we observed and learned from Mom and Dad and from each other.

The second example was the use of proper language. Mom and Dad didn't ever use foul language or curse or swear. I've never heard any of my brothers or sisters do so either. And yet, we were never lectured on that subject. Example really does make a tremendous difference in our lives and in those who follow us.

Homework: Mom was the one responsible for seeing that schoolwork was completed. She also provided assistance if I had problems with homework. Mom had been a good student herself when she was in school in South Dakota. We still have one of her spelling bee awards (is that bea or bee?). I did not inherit my mother's spelling skills. Unfortunately, Mom never finished high school. Her family moved back to Illinois after her sophomore year in high school in South Dakota. I don't remember the circumstances, but Mom didn't return to high school when the family arrived back in Illinois.

Mom's advice on homework and study was to get right at it and get it done. When I first arrived home from grade school, I would listen to two or three 15-minute radio programs (Tom Mix, the Lone Ranger, and Jack Armstrong) and then it would be time to do homework at the dining room table. This was then followed by chores, including milking the cows. After dinner it would be homework time again.

The Gospel according to Mom: Some of Mom's most often used phrases were 'boys stop that fighting' and 'make sure you say your prayers', and 'have you finished your homework'. In my case that was always followed by 'and don't tease your sister'.

I added to Mom's woes by fighting with my brothers and teasing Marilyn and her girl friends. I was generally the one who caused most of the problems, and got into the most trouble with my parents. Despite my behavior and constant teasing, Marilyn remained my defender throughout all my years at home.

Perhaps Mom's greatest characteristic was her dedication to her role in life as a housewife and mother. She could and did outwork most men for most of her life without complaint. She was a tremendous role model demonstrating that hard work was something to be proud of even if it often went unrewarded at the time.

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The Jig Is Up: I inherited my father's skills as a woodworker, home repairman, furniture designer and cabinet maker… I can't do any of them either!

One Christmas Dad received a jigsaw. He was very excited and pleased to get such a nice electric saw, and announced he would build a coffee table for Mom. Over a period of several weeks you could hear the hum of the little saw in the basement each night. Dad emerged one evening with his new creation. A coffee table (of sorts) that stood about… well, it almost was 13 or 14 inches high, depending on which table leg you measured. At one end it was about 13 inches, and the other, sure enough, was about 14 inches.

Mom, in her typical very calm, pensive, and thoughtful manner, looked at the table carefully and proclaimed 'Ralph, it looks like it runs downhill.' Dad said, 'That's no problem, Mother, I just need to make a slight adjustment.' Dad picked up the table and disappeared once more into the basement. Soon you could again hear the hum of the little jigsaw. Several hours later he reappeared, table in hand. He set it on the floor for all to see. It was now about 8 inches high, but it was… well, almost level. Turned out that brother Terry was the only one who could use that table!

 Chef For A Day: Dad always considered himself a chef and he even dreamed of someday owning a small restaurant. If given half a chance, and 10 or 15 minutes in the kitchen, he would soon concoct some of the most unique dishes that were ever placed on a dining room table. Dad's dishes always had lots of ingredients… sometimes dozens. He was really big on beans, of all kinds, and if he had 10 vegetables available, they would all be included also. Another favorite of his were eggs. Oh well, it's just as well sometimes that not all our dreams come true. Dad never became a restaurateur. The lord sometimes intervenes and protects us from some of our not so rational ideas.

Tools Of The Trade: Every year Dad would plant a huge garden. It would always end up being a family garden because during the course of the spring and summer, we all got our chance to work in the garden. Actually we had two gardens, the one just north of the house, and the potato patch to the east of the old chicken house. In addition Dad also planted a few rows of sweet corn in the small field just north of the house.

Dad did most of the planting but the hoeing and harvesting was done by us boys and by Marilyn (I assume Donna got her chance after we older kids moved away).

Dad loved gardening almost as much as farming (and cooking). One of my favorite memories is seeing Dad standing in the garden with his trusty, (I mean crusty) do everything pocket knife… pealing a turnip, radish, beet, onion or whatever was handy, and standing there eating it.

That trusty, crusty knife was used for everything from castrating hogs to slicing apples. All it ever took to sterilize it for it's next use was two quick brushes against his overalls. Usually one swipe per side of the blade… just like a barber sharpening his strait razor on a strap. Makes one wonder why we waste so much money buying anti-bacterial soaps and disinfectants these days.

Practical Lessons: Two of the lessons I learned from Dad were the importance of taking care of equipment and the completion of tasks.

If you've ever wondered why I was always so particular about my cars, the yard, etc., it was because of what I learned from Dad. He never worried much about cars, trucks, or the yard, but he was very particular about maintenance of equipment; especially equipment that related to being a successful farmer, which he always was. The hoes, hedge knives, spades, plowshares, etc., were always cleaned and sharpened. Dad was also very particular about his livestock and they received the best of care.

When it came to work, Dad stuck with it until everything was finished. He never did things half way. This trait used to drive us kids crazy because Dad hated weeds and we couldn't quit cutting and hoeing in the cornfields until every last one of those devils was hunted down and destroyed. This passion to destroy weeds sure played havoc with us boys playing baseball in the grove in front of the house.

Do As I Do: Perhaps some of life's greatest lessons are learned more from observations than from conversations. One of Dad's greatest gifts was patience. He also had great respect and consideration for others. I've never mastered any of these qualities to the same extent as Dad, but then few people ever have.

At the time of Dad's death, and still today, when people mention Dad they all tell me he never met a stranger and he never had an enemy… only friends.

It seems to me that you can only say things like this about someone who learned to overlook, to listen, to forgive and to treat people with the utmost respect. Dad was a great listener and I don't ever remember him interrupting anyone. I know he liked some people better than others, but you didn't know that based on what he said or how he treated them. Some people say the right things, but Dad did the right things when it came to dealing with others.

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 Finances: Mom and Dad started with very little financially but I don't ever remember going without plenty of food, enough clothes to wear, and other essentials required for a normal childhood.

I'm sure they worried about finances but they rarely talked about it in front of us kids. I do remember from some of Mom's comments that she thought Dad was perhaps 'too close' with his money and that he could afford to spend more than he did. It's interesting to note however that after Dad's death, Mom became close with her money… perhaps even more 'closer' than Dad had been. Life offers many lessons… if only we could learn to apply them to our own lives.

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Heavenly Peace: If I close my eyes and listen carefully I can still recreate the start of Dad's typical workday.

Lying in my bed in the upstairs bedroom and just barely awake, I can hear Dad going out the back porch door. He is on his way to pick up his milk bucket at the windmill and on to the barn to milk the cows. He is humming his all time favorite song, 'on blueberry hill'; a man at peace with himself, his role in life, and the world.

Dad Quotes: 'If you can't say something good about someone then don't say anything'. This was not just a saying with Dad because he lived his life that way.

Can you imagine someone going through life in this day and age without ever owing anyone any money? I believe that was true of Mom and Dad. It's not surprising then that Dad's philosophy was 'never buy anything you can't pay for'. It’s a great concept but I was never able to achieve it.

"If it's worth doing, it's worth doing right'. This was Dad's response to us boys complaining about weed cutting.

'A penny saved is a penny earned'. This is a very old saying that Dad referred to on occasion. Probably not unusual for someone who grew up and married in a country just going into and recovering from a national depression.

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On Being Very Young: The day I told Mom that your Mother and I were considering marriage, we had driven to Bloomington and were returning home on route 9. There was a long silence and finally Mom said, 'well you are both very young'. It was hard to argue against that because I was just 19 at the time. Mom wanted to know if I was really sure and if I thought I could support Mary Ann (today that would be a sexist question). These were both good questions because I had just started at State Farm and was making .75 an hour. That was the minimum wage at that time in September 1951. If I had started a month earlier I would have made .50 an hour.

Mom asked other questions, about where we would live, and how we would get around since we didn't own a car and had no plans or money to own one. Even in those days you needed some amount of money to buy things.

Mom and Dad both continued to ask questions but never said 'no'. They just wanted to make sure we knew what we were doing. I'm not sure we did, but with the grace of God, it worked, and the rest is history. We were married in 1952 and rented an apartment on East Jefferson Street. We lived on the third floor of the Temple apartment building next door to the Scottish Rite Temple. For six months we walked to work and to church and rode city busses to get elsewhere in town. I finally bought our first car, with Dad's help, in August of 1952. It was a 1948 Plymouth.

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Changes: People who have never lived on a farm have no way of appreciating just how demanding and confining farm life was in the 30s and 40s and how much it has now changed. For example, if you owned milk cows, which almost every farmer did in those days, you milked them twice a day. We always had 8 to 12 milk cows. So, every day, 365 days a year, whether it was Christmas, or your birthday, or Sunday, you milked them twice.

The same thing applied in many respects to the crops. When it was time to plant, you worked day and night. The same was true in the fall at harvest time. There was always a right and a wrong time for everything on the farm, and so you did them.

 In I am not suggesting that rural America was or is the only place these principles existed. It's just that all of these things were very real and visible and seemed more common and widespread in the farm communities of my youth.

In my lifetime, the number of changes has been overwhelming. We've gone from horses to tractors, from kerosene lamps to electric lights, from adding machines to personal computers, from prop airplanes to spaceships, from the building of the Berlin Wall to its destruction, from war to peace several times, and from near wars to constant unrest in many parts of the world.

I remember the bombing of Pearl Harbor, Roosevelt's death, the Kennedy' and King assassinations, Nixon's resignation, and Clinton's impeachment hearings.

In preparing this book of memories, your Mother and I drove out to the Baby Fold farm to look around and to take some pictures. We parked the car and walked into the 29 acres of timber just to see how it looked and to see if it had changed… it has. I recall how the timber and pasture looked when we first moved there in 1944. You could not walk from the road to the river, at least not in a straight line, without much effort dodging bushes and thorn trees. I'm sad to say it is like that again today.

When you reach the crest of the hill overlooking the river, it's a solid thicket… just like it was when we moved there and prior to our cleaning out the brush and reseeding the 29 acres. All of this is a vivid reminder of how rapidly things do change. I'm sure someone more gifted with words than me could more clearly equate this phenomenon to our personal lives. Perhaps one of the lessons to be learned is that we periodically need to clean out the brush in our own lives so we can, once again, recognize and appreciate the great gift we are to each other.

The preparation of this book has helped me do that and to cherish even more these memories and those who helped make them possible.

Your Mother and I have been blessed throughout our life. We have 6 wonderful kids and (so far) 13 wonderful grandchildren. I first started recording these memories at Jan's request in about 1992. The more I wrote, the ore I became enthused with the idea of preserving our family history for future generations.

I hope that you have gotten as much from reading this as I have gotten from writing it.

June, 1999

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Memories of Duane Weber | Created for his family | June 1999

Webmaster: jjod@gte.net

Addendum: Summer 2001 - A picture of the entire Weber Clan 

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