Last week we met Joe DeJaeghere, whose parents emigrated from Belgium in the early 1920s; married in Indiana; and moved to a farm near Ghent in 1930. Joe was born a year later on Sept. 2, 1931.

The family was farming between Ghent and Minneota at the time, but soon moved to another farm just outside Minneota. Joe’s first memories involve that farm during the dry years of the “Dirty Thirties.”

“I can remember running out to the field, getting my feet full of Russian thistle pins. Those days you got slapped on the butt for running out there. I can remember that part,” Joe remembered with a chuckle, “and then my sister pulling those pins out of my feet. I think this was ’34.”

He was too young to understand how harsh that time was for his family and the region, but his young eyes took in sights that stuck with him.

“I knew about the drought conditions because of these Russian thistles. That’s all that grew in the field. They’re great big weeds. They break loose and the wind just blows them into the fence lines and stuff. They’d tumble around the field. I can remember that part of the drought.”

A year or two later he began helping his sister, who was 10 years his senior, with her farm chores.

“My sister used to take me out to the pasture to get the cows — the milk cows. Those years they pastured them and went out and brought them home. I remember going out there with my sister and I wasn’t even 6 years old.”

Joe began attending country school and gained a younger brother, Morris, while living on that farm. But the family moved again to another farm west of Ghent

His role on the new farm expanded, due in part to his mother’s declining health from a heart problem.

“In the early years when she could do things, she took care of the chickens until I was old enough to take care of them. We had 400 laying hens, which was a lot of laying hens to carry water to and feed. On the farm we had to carry the water and it was uphill, too. (Joe laughed) You picked eggs twice a day — you picked at noon and in the evening — and cased them. You didn’t have to wash them, but you cased them — thirty dozen to a case.”

Joe and his younger brother attended country school, but he had farm chores to attend to first and last.

“We went to country school — eight grades. I can remember we always had to do the cow milking; feed the calves; separate [the cream]; and eat breakfast before we went to school. But I got a ride to school. My sister could drive my brother and I to school. We usually walked home at night because it was daylight and then eat lunch and do chores again.”

Joe did not remember precisely when he began to help with milking in the morning. But knew he was doing it in 1940, when he was 9 years old, because that was the year of the Armistice Day Blizzard. He well recalled milking during that event.

“Then, the next I can remember real well was the Armistice Day Blizzard of 1940. That was for three days. It started on Sunday afternoon and lasted ’til Wednesday night. I can remember going to milk. We held hands to get to the barn. Some people used a rope, but my dad used to lead. He hung on to my sister’s hand and she hung on to my hand to go milk cows. I was 9 years old.”

He shared other memories from that blizzard.

“It piled snow like you couldn’t believe and killed pheasants! I ran around afterwards and got pheasants just laying around on top of the snowbanks. They were frozen to death. We had a woven wire fence that was 4 feet high that was covered with snow. We could walk right over the fence. That was the only way we could get to the barn was walk over the snowbanks.”

Joe described the biggest building on their farm and its multiple purposes.

“We had a hip-roofed barn, which was where you stored your [loose] hay and straw upstairs in the loft. We had one side where we had the milk cows – ten or eleven milk cows and the little calves that you pail-fed. And then on the other side you had your yearlings and your horses. This was still horse farming when I was younger.”

Joe’s fondness for his dad’s workhorses showed when he described them.

“They were crossed, part Belgians. They weren’t Percherons or straight Belgians, but they were good workhorses. We had one team that he had as two year-olds and he had them until, I think, 1960 when he gave up the horses. The four horses we had when I grew up were Prince and Fly and Jerry and Colonel.”

The horses required care, but Joe seemed proud of working with them. He laughed as he described his horse chores.

“Well, we cleaned the barns out for them, of course. And then we always had to feed them hay and oats. And harness – I knew how to harness a horse when I was just a little kid! Harnessing wasn’t that easy, you know. You had to be brave enough to step between the horses.”

Joe’s responsibilities around the farm grew as he did.

I welcome your participation in and ideas about our exploration of prairie lives. You may reach me at prairieview pressllc@gmail.com.