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The Vietnam War – Royal Hettling – Growing up on a Minneota farm

Royal Hettling was born in November 1951 in Marshall, the fourth of five children born to Agnes (Myhre) and Lloyd Hettling. The Hettling kids, three boys and two girls, grew up on the family farm three miles north of Minneota. Royal’s oldest sibling was his brother Charlie, followed by sister Carol, brother Danny, and younger sister Judy.

He described his childhood home on the farm.

“It had a long driveway — four-tenths of a mile. The house was a smaller, two-story with two small bedrooms on the upper level. We had a cattle barn, hog barn, granary, a small chicken coop, and some grain bins.”

Royal’s dad raised dairy and feeder cattle, hogs, and chickens. His 400 acres included pasturage for the cattle and production land for hay, corn, and oats for feed and flax and beans as cash crops. The oats also provided straw for livestock bedding. All the livestock and crops ensured the entire family had plenty of work to support the operation.

Royal recalled his first farm chores as a youngster.

“Picking the eggs. I was hesitant to stick my hand under the hen to see if there were any eggs underneath while she was in her nest, thinking, ‘Is she going to peck me?’ They never did peck.”

He remembered other tasks for his mom.

“When we were younger we’d be picking strawberries in the strawberry patches during the season. When the vegetables were ripe, we’d be out in the garden, picking them. Mom did the freezing and canning. As we got older, we’d graduate to farm chores like picking eggs, watering the animals, and feeding them. As we got older yet, it was into the fieldwork.”

Royal explained how their milk cows were integral to the farm operation in a couple ways.

“The cows we milked out were mainly for sucking calves. Dad would go to the sales barn and buy calves to put under the cows and we raised and marketed the calves once they got to market weight. In early years when Dick Bruns had a store in Taunton, we had a cream separator on the front porch. We’d separate the cream and take it to Taunton where Dick would buy it. Once he retired, we stopped doing that.”

Royal recalled that his dad had specific tasks for each tractor.

“Each tractor had its own jobs. The 50 John Deere was for mowing and cultivating because it had a John Deere sickle mower and a two-row cultivator. He had a Ford tractor we used for a side deliver rake once the hay was mowed. We also used that to operate the grain elevator. If you were putting hay up in the barn, we also used that to haul the hay up. He had a rough-riding, Model D John Deere, which was his plow tractor. He later got a 4010 John Deere. That was the main plow and pull-combine tractor because it was bigger. He had a 1936 Model A tractor towards the end. He mainly used that on the hammer mill to grind feed.”

Royal described his Dad’s overall role in the farm operation.

“He was the boss. He made the decisions about what to plant; where to plant it; and how to plant it. You just followed. He decided when the marketing was to be done; when to grind the feed; and how much was to be fed and when. With Dad, it was always, ‘My way is the way.'”

Lloyd Hettling could be a tough taskmaster, but Royal explained that his dad had grown up in difficult circumstances that later led to some extended family identity confusion.

“His older brother and his mother died six weeks apart during the influenza pandemic in 1917-18. So, he and his younger sister were raised by an uncle and aunt. People we considered to be uncles and aunts were really cousins and the person we always considered our grandpa was really his uncle. So, as we got older, we had a little trouble trying to decode and comprehend that, ‘If that’s his uncle, why do we call him grandpa?’

Royal had distinct favorite and disfavored field chores.

“Cultivating the corn or the beans was the best, mainly because the tractor did all the work. Physically, it was not hard at all. All you had to do was make sure you drove straight and didn’t root anything out. Combining the small grain was challenging because usually that was the hottest part of the summer and, especially with oats, you had a lot of chaff blowing. You usually worked up a good sweat. Somehow that chaff would always stick to you and you’d just itch!”

The Hettling kids did not have much free time growing up on the farm.

“There was very little free time because at that time Dad had 400 acres that we were always working. But when I had time, I liked to take a softball and bat to the pasture. I would hit the ball; run and chase it; pick it up; hit it again; and chase it again. From time to time, we’d go fishing on a neighborhood creek and occasionally we’d go to a lake and go fishing.”

Royal reflected on what he had learned from growing up on the farm.

“Hard, physical work doesn’t hurt anybody. Actually, you benefit from working hard as it instills good work habits in you.”

When Royal reached school age he attended the Minneota Public Schools.

©2024 William D. Palmer Contact me at prairieviewpressllc@gmail.com with any comments about or story suggestions for “Prairie Lives.”

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