Earl & Eliza Halls

When spring came, we went back to the homestead. I had a large box of Margaret’s things and an old organ that Dad sold me. I think I always figured Earl paid for it. He complained about his freight charge, but I dressed the boys and myself out of that box for some time and I enjoyed the organ. I’m sorry I never took time to teach my boys how to sing when small. Our hindsight is so much better than our foresight. I do not remember much of the trip back or anything of that summer. It seems that Earl was around home more. He hooked the motorcycle on the washer for power so I had to wash when he was home.

There were times when we would celebrate the Fourth of July with a neighbors’ get-together. Other times we would go to Monticello. One time we talked about it, but never made any decisions. I asked Earl if we were going because if we were, I had to wash the boys’ clothes. He didn’t know, so I didn’t wash. Next day he said, “Let’s go.” But that was out. He was so put out, he took a shovel and dug a well on the side of the hill. He found water but it was never used. It could have been, if we had stayed on the homestead longer. The next time we went to look at it, it was full of some kind of little animals. We wondered where they came from out of that dry ground. But there they were, wiggling around like it belonged to them.

We visited back and forth with all our neighbors and life wasn’t so bad, at least I liked it.

(Glenn) 1920. After Dad got his tractor, he was disking a field a short distance from the house. On this day Lyle and I were with him. I went with Dad on the tractor, leaving Lyle in the corner of the field where Dad had his lubricants stored. When we got back from making a round of the field, there was Lyle who had gotten into the black grease, and had grease and dirt all over him. He would wiggle his fingers with that stuff in them; was he a mess! I don’t recall, but I bet there was a little noise when Lyle was taken home.

(Earl) After three years of homesteading, we finally proved up on the land, and it was ours. We had sixty-five acres under cultivation, and should have let it go at that. But we didn’t. We mortgaged it to the Federal Land Bank for $1,800.00, bought a small tractor, plow, and a few other tools. I made a contract to farm 110 acres on shares that joined our place. The land was plowed and I was to plow it back the next year. We planted fall wheat and raised a fairly good crop. The next fall, in September, it was ready to thresh. I could have sold the grain at the machine for $2.25 a hundred, but the men I was renting from owned a thresher and would have had to pay for another machine to thresh their share, so instead of letting me thresh and selling the grain when I could, they came with their machine to thresh on the seventh of December. A foot of snow was on the ground and it had been raining. I lost 600 bushels of wheat that was too wet to thresh, and there was no market for the wheat. The landowners brought a herd of hogs out from Monticello to feed around the straw stacks so they didn’t lose. Next spring the bank had my wheat hauled out to the railroad and gave me credit for fifty cents a hundred for it on my note. I had to borrow money to farm with. The dear brothers I rented from were directors in the bank, one a high councilman, etc., and so on, and so forth.

(Eliza) This is the year we thought we were on the way up. Earl had made a deal with Chris Christensen and June Parson to plant about half of the school section. He was to do the work. They would furnish seed and binder and thresher. Due to the First World War, wheat was at a premium, running about $2 per bushel. We also had our little farm planted. We had to hire some help through the summer. We ran out of money and borrowed from a Monticello bank on the strength of the summer crops, which were good. But come threshing time, Chris and June were going to have their own thresher, and were coming in any day. Time went on. Earl said, “Do you think I should have Peterson (a local homesteader, who had bought a thresher) thresh my half?” I wasn’t much help. I said, “I don’t know. I don’t know. What kind of a deal do you have with the others?” So he waited. Every time he saw them the thresher was going to be there soon. It finally got there. I cooked for the threshers with some help. It stormed so they had to stop. But we still had to be prepared and ready with food. The storm cleared in a few days, but was wet, cold, and very uncomfortable. Chris Christensen and Earl divided the barn and stored their grain – two big bins full of beautiful wheat – two dollars per bushel. Not getting much news of worldly things, we didn’t know all. Earl took a load to Colorado – fifty cents a bushel. All that wheat. All the high hopes. The bottom fell out of everything. We weren’t the only ones hit. I guess some of the homesteaders got to market early, but this was the beginning of the end for Lockerby and the homesteaders.