Tale is well versed in Minnesota farm boy's life

Recently, I had the pleasure to meet and interview Gerald “Red” Sarff.

My first question to him was, “Red, tell me about your family and where did you grow up? He got up from his chair, left the room, and retuned with a small stack of papers and pictures. He chose several sheets of paper and handed them to me.

I read from beginning to end and when I was finished, I realized Red had answered my question in his own distinct way. I want to share his story with you just as he wrote it. He takes us from the family farm in Minnesota to the shores of Lake Pend Oreille and shares what his life has been like along the way.

I grew up on a Minnesota farm

Did lots of chores around the barn

Had fences to build and gates to fix

Was milking cows by the time I was six

I had five siblings older than me

And younger siblings I had three

We were taught when very young

That working was a lot of fun

We didn’t have much time to play

But sure had fun twelve hours a day

I pumped lots of water for the stock

It seemed the fun would never stop

We had corn to plant and spuds to hoe

And thinned the carrots by the row

We raised cukes, tomatoes, and cabbage for kraut

Tried to store enough so we wouldn’t run out

We grew enough corn to fill a large crib

It was one thing we made sure we did

With chickens to feed and hogs to slop

One would think the fun would never stop

We put up hay, about forty ton

That was always a lot of fun

We had barns to clean and manure to spread

Then clean ourselves from toe to head

In summer we could bathe in a stream near by

But in winter time it would freeze bone dry

Once I pumped a tub of water when it was twenty below

And my brother took a bath from head to toe

But usually we warmed the water and filled the tub

And often my brothers’ backs I’d scrub

My sisters of course were more refined

And better sisters one could never find

My sisters also helped on the farm

They knew a little fun would do no harm

One of my sisters got very good

At pulling a saw and chopping wood

 They had many other chores to do

Like scrubbing floors and making stew

They had beds to make and floors to sweep

With clothes to wash and also the sheets

Seldom did you hear anyone complain

We had lots of fun in sun or rain

In the summertime when it was hot

We found some shade and played “Dock the Rock”

It’s a little like lawn bowling

But rocks are tossed instead of rolling

I hunted Rabbits and Grey Squirrels too

They were always good in a kettle of stew

We put up twenty cord of wood every fall

It was my job to stack it along the wall

We also stacked some in the shed

Where our cats and dogs were fed

In September I was on the run

A-shocking grain and having fun

We had corn to cut and silos to fill

I doubt if I was ever standing still

I did a lot of boxing when I was young

I didn’t call it playing but I had fun

In all those years I was never knocked down

But had some black eyes and my nose turned around

I made three dollars a round, sometimes more

I remember one fight I made twenty-four

That was the time my nose got bent

But money earned made it time well spent

It took 200 bushel of corn to fill the crib

That’s quite a chore when you’re just a kid

I didn’t ware gloves to keep my hands warm

But I sure wore gloves to husk the corn

The gloves had metal hooks to break the husk

To shuck with speed they are a must

Before it frosted in the fall

We piled tomatoes, vines and all

And covered the piles with a lot of hay

Had fresh tomatoes an extra month that way

There were June Berries and Blue Berries to pick

And Pin Cherries, which grew along the crick

The women put up a hundred quarts of jam

Pin Cherries made jelly, which goes good with Ham

We butchered Pigs at least one a month

But in the fall we butchered a bunch

The last three years I lived on the farm

We grew Sorghum Cane behind the barn

Two hundred gallon of Sorghum is what we made

It sure goes good on Hot Cakes, Bacon and Eggs

By October the farming slowed down

So I rode the school bus in to town

I’d go to school four days a week

And study at night till I fell asleep

I was up in the morning before the sun

Doing chores before the school bus come

In November we cut cords of fire wood

Dad hauled it to town when the weather was good

He got Seventy-five cents a cord at the Grocery store

And if taken out in trade he got Ten cents more

Flour and Sugar were a Penny a pound

And Coffee was too if not ground

We cut and sold Ice at Two Dollars a Ton

So when it was forty below we still had fun

My brothers and I cut ice for the neighborhood

For six weeks we hauled ice instead of wood

There was an Ice House at the Railroad Station

We always filled that during Christmas vacation

That Holiday cash sure came in handy

We could afford some gifts and even candy.

(To be continued)