Life on the Farm

 

Specific responsibilities were assigned to or assumed by each member of the family. One of theses was carrying a five gallon water jug on a littlw wagon over a rough country road to a remote field about a mile away where the farm hands were working. Another was bringing the cows in from the pasture at milding time and tying each one to a proper stanchion before feeding them.

 

There were also the horses to be bedded. This involved carrying straw from the straw stack in the barnyard adn making a clean bed in the stall for each horse. The horses were curried and brushed each day. The most uppleasant task was cleaning the cow barn and the horse stables.

 

Each spring when new lambs were born, some ewes refused to care for their offspring, particularly if there were twins or triplets. In such an instance, raising a lamb consisted primarliy of providing a shelter to protext it from bad weather, dogs or other predators, and feeding it warm milk from a nursing bottle three or four times a day.

 

Other jobs on the farm included shocking grain, cutting and shocking corn, mosing hay with a horse-drawn mower, spreadiang manure by hand using a long handled fork, and drying hay with a horse-drawn tedder. This had forks attached to levers that moved up and down stirring the hay it would dry more quickly.

 

A large open pit fireplace was used for manyu of the household chores. Kettles provided hot water used to boil clothes. these clothes were hand rubbed on washboards that stood in tubs. In those days all soaps were handmade. The two most essential ingredients of this soap were grease and lye. Lye was derived from wood ashes. To make it a large wooden hopper shaped like an inverted funnel rested on a round flat iron base that drained into a pot of several gallons capacity. The hopper  was filled with wood ashes, and every day or two, a bucket of water was poured over the ashes. As the water soaked through the ashes it produced the lye, and amberr liquid so strong that it would blister one's skin.

 

As for the grease, it was used from a supply of fat that was stored after butchering or from fat drippings collected from cooking meats. To make hard soap a specified amount of lye was put into one kettle over a fire. When it reached boiling point a measured amount of grease was added. After the grease was dissolved in the lye the kettle was removed ffrom the fire, the mixture was poured into a mold until the soap had solidified. It was then cut into squares for use as needed. Soft soap was made by the same process except that the amount of grease was reduced so that the final product was a thick brown liquid soap.

Recreation and Other Activities

 

There were some dreal sports activities. These included included skating and bobsledding. there were numerous ponds on the homestead farm where the Brumbaughs skated, sometimes joined by neighbors. Nearby Congress lake offered unlimited skating.

 

Another winter sport was trapping rabbits. For this purpose people used a boxtrap. Both ends of the trap were raised by cords attached to a trigger on which an apple was placed as bait, the ends of the trap would fall, securely enclosing the rabbit. The traps had to be checked regularly to bring home any catches.

 

One "sport" that was fun was robbing bumble bee nests. These nests were usually made in holes in the ground, often in a hayfield or pasture. The bunble bees were a nuisance because when they were disturbed by men working in the fields they stung both men and livestock. once a nest was located, people would make the attack armed with paddles and a partially filled black water jug. The paddles were used in self defense, while the water jug was a trap. Seeing it, the bumble bees would attack it and generally would fly into the neck of the jug to a fatal watery reception. When the colony of bees was finally subdued, the reward could be a delicious comb of honey eaten on the spot.

 

A related activity was the hiving of bees. In the spring or summer when the bee hives bacame overcrowded, a new queen and her followers would leave the parent hive and go searching for a new location. To avoid the loss of valuable bees, efforts were made to induce them to enter an empty hive. The trick was to lure the queen to enter the new hive,

The Family Church

 

For many years Conrad was a member of the German Baptist Brethren Church. Lewis Brumbaugh, as the chief contributor, donated land (about two or three acres) and materials to construct the Lake German Baptist Brethren Church built across thge road from the homestead.

 

The church as a large rectangular wooden structure with a main audience room and two small rooms at the back used to store wood, kerosene, and other supplies. Two doors near the front led into the sudience room, the one on the right was used by the men and the one on the left by the women. At the front of the audience room was a pulpit with a bench behind it for the preachers. The main room had long benches parallel to the pulpit. Benches on either side along the wall stood at right angles to those int he center.

 

Heat was provided by two wood-burning box stoves, one on either side of the room near the center. Kerosene lights were suspended from the ceiling with chains which could be which could be lowered for lighting, filling, trimming wicks and washing the glass chimneys.

 

Usually four ministers occupied the long bench behind the pulpit. They went through a ceremony at the beginning of each service extending the invitation to the one next to him to speak first. Two of the ministers preached in German, the third preached in English. Thr fourth one was limited in that he seldom did more than announce a hymn or lead in the Lord's Prayer. Preaching usually lasted more than one hour. Once or twice a year an old fashioned communion service was held combining the Lord's Supper and foot washing.

 

A revival meeting was held in late fall or winter when the farmers' responsibilities were lighter, and they would be more apt to attend this special evening service. This church stressed "believers baptism" based upon the scripture: "He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved," so small children were not accepted into the membership of the church, The church also emphasized and required immersion as the form of baptism to be administered to those wishing to join the church. Converts were baptized in the outlet of Congress Lake.

The Barn

 

Several hundred feet from the house was a large barn about 125 feet long. The barn frame was made of hand-hewn timbers put together with wooden pegs. It was of the Pennsylvania Dutch type with an upper level where hay and grain were stored. The stables were on the ground level. In addition to all of these buildings, other structures on the homestead consisted of a wood house, a buggy shed, a hog house, a chicken house, a windmill and a water tank.