If I Had a Hammer ... or a Shovel

 

There's some heft to an old scoop shovel Randy uncovered as he was going through sheds before the farm sale.

Today's scoop shovels are much lighter. Even though the design hasn't changed much since the first human decided to hammer a piece of metal into a big "spoon," today's scoop shovels are usually made of composite metal. It certainly doesn't alleviate the elbow grease that the tool still requires. But, the new iterations are still a little easier to repeatedly scoop and lift.

So the old, heavy scoop shovel doesn't have a lot of value in 2022. However, there's a lot of sentimental value scratched in the rough-hewn wooden handle. The initials "SF" were etched into the wooden handle by Randy's great-grandfather, Simon Fritzemeier.

I enhanced the photo with HDR to try and reveal the initials, but the mark is pretty faded. Though Randy vaguely remembered the shovel being marked in some way, it still took him awhile to find it on the splintery old wood.

Instead of adding the scoop to the trailer of miscellaneous "treasures" for the farm sale, it came home with Randy.

Randy doesn't remember his great-grandparents well. Simon's big white mustache was his most memorable characteristic. These photos were taken in 1956, when Randy was just a baby.

But, Simon didn't always have a mustache. In looking through the family photo books that Randy's mom, Marie, compiled, it shows a clean-shaven Simon with his bride, Augusta, on their wedding day. (That photo is undated, too.)

There were a couple more snapshots in Marie's notebook. Randy remembers visiting them at their house in town, since they lived only a few houses down from his grandparents, Clarence and Ava Fritzemeier.

The materials used to make the shovel aren't the only things with "heft." The memories left behind in five generations of farming on the Kansas plains are pretty weighty, too. We've been privileged to be part of that.

Saying Goodbye to the Old Homestead

You'd think there would be photos of a place where so much life was lived. 

But it was a different time. There wasn't a phone in everyone's pocket with a camera embedded inside. You had to roll film inside the camera, catching it in the spool before advancing. I'm sure I'm not the only one who didn't get film inserted quite right a time or two and then finally figured out that I hadn't been taking photos for awhile.

You had to send the film off to be developed. There was no such thing as looking through a phone gallery to see what you got and immediately deleting the photo of Grandpa with his head cut off.

So I suppose it's not all that surprising that I couldn't find a single photo of the house where Randy's parents made a home after Melvin came back from serving in the Korean War. 

On this coming Saturday, June 4, we'll begin the process of turning that farmstead over to a new family. There will be an auction to sell Melvin & Marie's house and some acreage. 

As is usual in a small town, the rumor mill has been churning out information. For the record, Randy and I are not selling our own home. We are not moving away from Stafford. We do plan to close the chapter at the farmstead that has served as a Fritzemeier farming home base since the 1940s.

 

After wheat harvest, we'll have a farm sale of our equipment. Since Melvin & Marie's old house serves as the farm base, the house won't be available for the new family until after August 13, when our farm sale is scheduled.

Yes, there is some nostalgia. Yes, there are some mixed feelings. But it's also a feeling of relief not to be responsible for another house. After Melvin's death, we've used it for employee housing. And every time there was employee turnover, we put more money into that house. And, we've spent more money at that house, repairing damages, than we've spent in the house where we've personally lived for almost 37 years. 

So it's time. But it's also been a time to think about what the farmstead has meant to our family. As I said, I couldn't find a single photo of the old white farmhouse where Melvin and Marie built a farm and raised three children - Randy, Lyle and Kathy. 

 They brought each of their babies home to the white farm house, including Randy, their firstborn.

Lyle & Randy by the old house front door - Undated photo

There were a few pictures by the door or in the yard.

There were family Christmases.

Randy, Lyle, Kathy - Christmas 1969

Randy & Lyle, undated Christmas

And Marie and Melvin often hosted the extended Fritzemeier family Thanksgiving and Christmas parties, where Marie served her frozen banana punch and Melvin was responsible for the mashed potatoes. Those extended family gatherings fell by the wayside as that generation passed away. 

There were birthday parties. Those parties evolved into pizza parties in the basement for Randy's and his siblings' friends.

And there were plenty of parties among friends. Melvin and Marie hosted many a card party or Modern Homemakers EHU party at their house. 

I shared a few of those photos with a family who was planning a memorial service for one of those friends. 

 She wrote:

"These photos of our parents ... made me laugh.  They show a side of our parents that I never knew, hidden as it was in their past.  I’m somewhat envious of their lifelong friendships."

It's true: People don't take entertain like they used to do. 

But for the first time since the 1940s, Fritzemeiers won't have ownership at that place. Melvin's parents, Clarence and Ava, purchased an old farm house and some acreage back when Melvin and his sister, Gloria, were children. Before that, they'd rented several other places. But this new-to-them home was the first they'd owned. It also included a barn, a tin hay shed and some other outbuildings. 

 Eventually, they added a granary and some grain bins. They did take a photo of a new upright silo when it went into the farm yard. 

I used this comparison back in 2018 for a blog post of Randy's grandpa on the left and Randy on the right.

It's always been the farm's home base. The guys pulled the combines and tractors and discs in front of the shop to work on the inevitable broken parts. Sometimes, they pulled under the shade of big old trees, hoping to find a little relief from the summer sun for those repairs. Maybe those trees helped them avoid a little of the stereotypical "farmer's tan" - but not for long.

Big helpers - Randy & Lyle, undated photo in the old farm house kitchen

When Randy was a child, he remembers the sand pile by the wash house, where he and Lyle built many a road and "farmed" many an imaginary field. They climbed the trees. They batted balls. Randy remembers his dad trying to teach him to kick a football. Evidently, Melvin was a good kicker and punter for the Stafford Trojans. Randy says he must not have gotten that gene. 

This photo was taken in Stafford (not the house that's for sale)

Randy remembers playing with his Hornbaker cousins, who lived just down the road, and with his Ritts cousins, who sometimes visited from Ohio in the summer. When Gary, Ron & Marna came to visit, they built bike paths and played a board game called Tripoley. 

He learned to ride a bike on that dirt driveway, doing his share of daredevil tricks. He wasn't the only bike rider in the family. Randy's grandma Ava is on the bicycle in the far left of the photo. (If anyone can ID the other people, we'd love to know!)

 

Randy thinks he may be the "victim" in this photo below, where the silo is again in the background.

Randy remembers putting up hay in little square bales and then driving it into the farm yard, where they filled a couple of sheds for the winter. It was a great muscle builder for junior high and high school boys. 

Melvin with a calf in the farm yard

The corrals were the backdrop for years of feeding and working cattle and the scrapes and bruises that go with that.  

Clarence

Marie and cattle - I'm pretty sure this was taken to send to Melvin when he was in Korea. She definitely didn't dress up this much for her normal day on the farm!

The homestead welcomed a menagerie of dogs and cats throughout the years.

Grandma Ava and dog Tiny

Marie & "old Fuzzy" cat - as it says on the back of the photo

After Randy's sophomore year in college, Melvin and Marie moved a modular home onto the site, replacing the old farm house. That brick split level was one where they welcomed me as a new member of the family 41 years ago. 

And, honestly, I don't have many photos of that house either. There are photos of the people who lived there and the life that was lived. Honestly, I didn't dig through my tubs of photos in the basement to see if I could find photos of my kids playing, with the house in the background. No time for that with other things to do. (We did have a wedding last weekend. I can't wait for the official photos! And, if I'm honest, the packed-to-the-brim tubs from my kids' lives are overwhelming, and I have plenty of other spots to declutter first!)

Visiting Grandma & Grandpa at Halloween. Of course, Grandpa had a surprise for them, too!

Since Melvin and Marie's house was only two miles away from ours, Jill and Brent were frequent visitors. They stood on chairs and helped Marie cook. They pulled pots and pans out of the cupboards. They played with the toys that had been put away in the closet from Randy's and his siblings' childhoods.

Marie would hide plastic Easter eggs for the kids year 'round. Other than at Easter time, they didn't have anything special in them, but it was the thrill of the hunt, I guess. 

We gathered around a pickup bed to shuck corn. Jill and Brent would wield their own washrag from Grandma Marie, using her method to try and remove the silks from the corn cobs.  After their attention span waned, they'd run around the yard, playing where their ancestors had played before them.  

Randy says he remembers when the new house was moved in. He remembers watching it come down the road, toward the farm. I can't believe they didn't take photos. If they did, I don't know where they are.

Not all that long ago, both of us got tears in our eyes as we watched the semi depart from that farmstead with the final group of feeder calves that we'd raise and feed from the time they were babies to watching them go through the sale barn. 

November 2021

 (We're still involved and retain ownership. We're just not responsible for the day-to-day tasks.)

Yes, there are more memories than I can list. 

 

And we hope that will be true for the new family who will live there, too.

Looking Toward the Horizon

 

The prairie grasses swayed gently in the breeze of a pleasantly cool November morning. As I gazed out across the landscape now dressed for fall, I thought about the past.

This little bit of Kansas prairie probably looked much the same back in 1900. At that time, Albert Brinkman bought acreage along the Rattlesnake Creek in Stafford County, Kansas. Brinkman, who was a great-great-great uncle of Randy's, paid about $4 an acre. Originally in a tract of 1,040 acres, 560 acres remain in the Fritzemeier family.  

Today, Randy owns the pasture, along with his cousin, Don Fritzemeier. Two generations ago, Randy's Grandpa Clarence owned the pasture with his brothers, Ed (Don's father) and Harve.

This is an undated photo of Randy's Grandpa, Clarence Fritzemeier, with a bull. The back of the photo has written (in Randy's Grandma Ava's handwriting): "He looks like he knew he was going to be sold."

The breeds and the characteristics most coveted by cattleman have changed through those 120+ years, just as the landscape shifts from verdant spring green to faded fall hues to the sparse monotone of winter.

But the land itself has been there - silently playing a part in the family's farming legacy. For 121 years, the family has been the steward of the land they call the Big Pasture. And the land has been good to them. Those native grasses have helped sustain cows and their calves, adding diversity to the family's crop farming operations. 

 The meandering Rattlesnake Creek has been a source of life blood for the cattle that graze there.

A summer view - August 2020

Some years, the weather and the markets shone on the family's financial coffers. 

Other years, conditions were less than ideal. But, through it all, the legacy has continued.  

And it will continue. But our role in that legacy is shifting. On November 8, we completed our final cattle roundup at the Big Pasture. We will continue to own the land. But we are leasing our cow herd as part of our transition from active farming to retirement next year.

In truth, I'm not convinced it will be Randy's last cattle roundup. Since we will own the cows and retain a share of the calf crop, he can probably be persuaded to help with the roundup. But we sold our feeder calves this fall, rather than keeping them and feeding them throughout the winter. It will be nice to have the flexibility to go to family events without having to find someone to care for our herd. 

But it may be tough when January and February roll around, and the parade of baby calves is not quite as easily accessible. (For the record, our partner in the cow/calf operation - Tye - has said I can visit and take photos any time.)

As I sat in the pickup, honking the horn to attract the cows and calves to the hay and lead the parade to the corrals, I thought it was fitting that my eyes were focused on the rearview mirror. 

As we eye a new "normal," it's still important to look back at the legacy.

Years ago, the extended family would gather in the spring to take the cattle to pasture and then round them up in the fall. I think this undated photo would have been taken in the 1950s.

L to R: Clarence Fritzemeier (Randy's Grandpa) Milton Giedinghagen, Ben Fritzemeyer, Melvin Fritzemeier (my father-in-law) & Harve Fritzemeier. Yes there are two different spellings on Fritzemeier - it's not a typo!

 

While the guys were rounding up and sorting the cattle, the women got together to make a big meal.

My mother-in-law Marie, Jean Newell Fritzemeyer & Marjorie Giedinghagen on a cattle working day back in the 1950s.

I helped with the round-up there for the first time in 2019, though I'd been helping at other locations for years and years. To our knowledge, I was the first woman to help with the actual cattle work at the Big Pasture. (If I want to get technical, the woman still gets the job of making the meal. It's just sandwiches instead of a full-course hot meal.)

Undated photo - Clarence and Melvin

Back when Randy and Don were young, the brothers and families hauled all the cattle back home in small trailers. As they drove through Stafford, Randy remembers his dad telling him to "duck down." School was in session, and Randy was absent for the day. (Knowing Melvin, it was probably more joking around. It wasn't unusual for kids to be excused for a day of work back then.)

Don recalled a cattle moving day when Clarence took more than one unintended dip in the Rattlesnake. They also remembered a run-in Melvin had with a cow who was reluctant to leave the wide open spaces of the Big Pasture. She appeared to be trying out for the Olympics with a vault over Melvin's 4-wheeler. Luckily, both man and beast were unhurt.

Who knows? Maybe this Hereford pictured with Melvin was on the Big Pasture at some point. 

At that time, the Fritzemeiers raised horned Herefords.

Randy and I also had Hereford bulls as well as Angus bulls for our crossbred herd. But we opted for polled Herefords. 

My horn honking finally paid off with some of the herd heading toward the corrals.

It took more than one excursion for the guys on the 4-wheelers to find all the cows and calves scattered through the acreage. 

Once they were gathered, it was time to set up panels, the loading lane and loading chute so we could get the cattle from the pens to Don's semi. Don built the lane and chute one winter. 

The guys have done the set-up so often that it's kind of like watching a choreographed dance.

Just like their ancestors before them, they used plenty of wire to keep everything together. (It's a farmer thing!)

Then it was time for sorting. Our cattle and Don's were intermingled, so we sorted out our cows for the first semi load. The two cousins (along with a couple of other helpers) sorted while I ran the gate. The guys have been doing this a long time, and they seem to know instinctively what the other is going to do.

 

That done, we separated our calves for the next semi load.

 

This year, Don opted to load his cows and calves together, so that sped the process.

By now, the guys are used to my insistence on photos. 

Our friend, Mike, has been helping at the Big Pasture long enough that he's learned the "choreography" as well. I had to convince him to be in the photo. But then he insisted it was my turn, too.

It's tempting to look in the rearview mirror and remember only the good parts. But, just like anything, we've had our share of "mud" - the challenges and obstacles inherent in any business operation. It's just that our obstacles were sometimes literally mud ... and other organic matter.

But those challenging times are just part of life and business.

Since our children have chosen other careers, we will partner with a young farmer who has come back home to work with his family. As I wrote earlier this summer, Randy's Uncle Glenn gave him the opportunity 50 years ago as a sophomore in high school to get started with farming. Randy is thankful for the opportunity to "pay it forward," hopefully helping another young farmer - Tye Miller - make this farming and ranching thing work.

The sun was going down as we returned to the farmstead after a long day at the Big Pasture. We unhooked the trailer and headed for home.

As we drove away, I asked Randy to stop for a sunset shot.

And I was thankful for this legacy and this life.