Susanna (Ratzlaff) Wilson recollections, early life in Kansas

The Andreas Ratzlaff family rented a farm in Section 24 of Menno Township, Marion County, Kansas, from 1907-1914.  From 1914 until the mid-1930s, the family resided in Section 25.  The following are recollections of Susanna (Ratzlaff) Wilson, who was just a baby when the family emigrated in 1907:

           

            There were 12 children in our family; 2 passed away while they were babies, both older than me.  So we were 10: the oldest, Marie, then Karoline, Katherine, John (Johann), Florentine, Susanna, Albert, Abraham, Jacob and Isaac.  I was born February 26, 1906, and grew up in Hillsboro, Kansas RR.  We lived on a farm southwest of Hillsboro in a rather small house, but we were happy and did not know we were poor until I grew up.  We had a big orchard with every kind of fruit, a grape garden and a grove of trees behind the house.  There were big poplar trees where we put up swings, and a creek in the pasture where we spent many hours fishing in the summer and skating in the winter.

I just remember little bits from before I went to school.  I remember when I was 3 or 4 sitting on papa’s lap while he told me stories and sang the lullaby song before I went to bed.  Around that time he always had a mustache.  One day when he came home from town he had it shaved off so I thought he was a stranger and did not want him to hold me.  So he fixed a picnic lunch; I remember we had boiled eggs.  We took it to the orchard and sat under an apple tree to eat, so all was right again. 

We did not have a sink so mama washed dishes on the kitchen table.  While the older ones were in school I dried them.  I was not tall enough to look into the rinsing pan so reaching in I always wondered what I would get hold of.  I broke many a handle from coffee cups, and then nobody wanted to drink of those cups.  Those days we all drank Postum.

We were taught early in life to pray.  Papa read from the Bible, mostly the Psalms, and prayed every morning before breakfast.  Sometimes he would read and study the bible by lamp light until past midnight.  Later on he was a Sunday school teacher and prayed in church.  It has been said nobody could pray like he did, wish I had that gift.

Florentine and I were together so much that when she started school I missed her a lot.  When it was time for them to come home I would go climb on the corn shed to see if I could see them coming.  They came across the fields and pasture to find a narrow place on the creek to jump over.  It was 2 ½ miles to school.

I was a very bashful girl.  I did not speak to any of the other children for weeks.  The neighbors all talked a different kind of Dutch (Deutsche), so I had to learn it.  Then we had German in school for a while before we started the English.  So it sort of confused me.  I guess that is why I talk like I do.

Christmas was always a big thing in our country school.  We all had to recite a Christmas piece, besides a lot of singing, and we exchanged names.  We always got a big sack of goodies from the school and had a big Christmas tree with real candles.  Two men went around the big tree to light them, and then trim them as they burned down.  One time some of it fell on the cotton around the tree and we had a fire.  We always had the programs in the evenings.  Sometimes it was very cold.  Papa would hitch the horses to the lumber wagon and off we went.  Mama stayed home, at that time the two youngest boys were still little.  On the way home we would all sit on the floor of the wagon, put blankets over our heads, and eat from our treats.

During the winter papa would build us some sleds and we had lots of fun going down the hills with them.  He also made us all a rabbit trap and we trapped rabbits to make some money to do Christmas shopping: five cents for a jack rabbit and ten cents for a cotton tail.  We hung them on the north side of a shed to freeze them till papa took them to town.  The boys also trapped beavers and muskrats.  Since there were so many of us we drew names and bought nickel gifts at home.

In summer we shook mulberries from the trees, which there were plenty of.  Papa made a big trough that we mashed them in and the next day the berries would be at the top and the seeds at the bottom.  We would wash the seeds and sell them.  Mama always sewed us a new dress for Christmas and also for Easter.  Later on Marie did much of the sewing.  For school we had three dresses, plaid gingham.  They were always starched and ironed, and then they stayed clean longer.  Mama made all of our underwear from flour sacks, even for the boys, and longies in the wintertime.  She made the soap and washed on the wash board.  As we girls got older we all took our turn.  All of the white things were boiled in a large boiler on the stove.  The water was carried from the cistern outside the house, then all carried out again by the bucketful and all of the clothes hung on the line.

Papa made all kinds of games for us to play the long winter evenings.  When we got new calendars we cut the numbers from the old one and played all kinds of card games with them.  And sometimes on summer evenings he would come out and play games with us.  Sometimes on Sunday mornings he would get breakfast; always fixed boiled eggs and a little wine that he had made from wild grapes.  We could not all go to church Sunday mornings as there was not enough room in the buggy or later in the car.  I remember one time when Florentine and I were little girls, mama made us flowered Easter dresses, one pink one blue, with ribbons for hair and a sash to match.  We had patent leather slippers so we went and sat in the first row so the other children would be sure to see us.  During school months we would all sit at our long dining room table to study while papa sat at the head and read.  He was always willing to help us if we asked him.  Mama was usually tired after a long day of hard work and went to bed when supper dishes were done.

               

We always let some of the beans get dry, then put them in gunny sacks and hung them in the smoke house.  Then when we were out of beans they would bring a sack in and we all had to help with the shelling.  Also we shelled the corn by hand papa wanted for seed.  We always had a big garden.  We did not have canners those days, so had to dry or store things under ground.  We would dig a deep hold and put beets, carrots, and potatoes in, then put boards on top, then straw and dirt, and dig them up as needed.  We did can a lot of fruit.  When we butchered hogs, we rendered our lard.  When it was about done (did it in a big iron kettle over a fire, had to be stirred all the time) we put in pork chops.  When they were done we put them in a stone jar and poured some of the lard over them, also poured lard over the sausage after we fried it.  Then mama made some kind of brine to pout over some of the meat.  We made our own sausage, cleaning the intestines to stuff it in.  We smoked the ham and bacon, wrapped them in papa’s old blue shirts and hung them in the smokehouse.  We always baked our own bread and everything else we baked from scratch.  Sometimes when it was cold and papa was not working outdoors, while mama did the washing it was an all day affair.  Papa would get dinner.  One thing he made, got some big potatoes, grated them, put a few eggs, salt and pepper with it and made pancakes.

Of course things changes as we got older.  Had to help with the farm work.  I never worked with horses, sister Marie did a lot.  When John got older he did a lot of it but I helped, I stacked wheat, shocked corn, helped put up hay.  While papa and the older boys forked up the hay Florentine and I had to tramp it down.  It was always real hot at that time, so we worked hard and played hard and grew up.  And things changed.

Soon after we came to this country, when I was 2 or 3, and another one on the way, a family came that lived about 10 miles from us.  They wanted to know if they could have me since there were so many of us and they did not have any children of their own.  They said what all they could do for me, get me nice clothes and a big doll, but mama and papa said no.  Then Karoline, she was 8, said she would go.  So they took her but later she wanted to come back home.  They always promised her more things if she would stay, then they started having children and they begged her to stay on to help.  They came over sometimes and we would go see them now and then, and would see her in church.  When she was fourteen she got real sick with rheumatic fever, as soon as she was well enough, papa went and got her.  Then she and Marie were working for other farm people.  When she was 18 papa went to Oklahoma on a bus to see his brother, so she begged to go along since they had a girl her age.  When she was there she met Albert Schultz who she later married while she was there.  Mama was pretty mad at papa to leaver her there and for her getting married there.  She said once she thought mama never forgave her for it.

Then it was the First World War so Albert (Schultz) had to go to camp and she came home.  I think I must have been about 11 at that time.  That year there was so much influenza going around and we all got it too.  Papa, mama, and John somehow got over it in a few days.  But the rest of us were really very sick for a long time.  Marie had it so bad, she had such high fever she was delirious much of the time.  Later her hair all came out, she would talk a lot in her sleep so I could not sleep with her.  Karoline and Florentine were sleeping in the other bed, moaning away.  All I wanted was a quiet place, so I remember I went and got under the covers at papa and mamas’ feet.  Papa went to town with one of the neighbors, there was lots of snow and ice on the ground, papa asked the doctor to come, and he told him how sick we were.  He said he could not even take care of those living in town, and we would all die anyway, so many of them did.  But he gave papa some medicine and somehow we all made it.  Katherine was not at home at that time.  She had taken a summer job and they wanted her to stay and go to school there.  So she stayed there about 2 years, we all started to work away from home at an early age.

Marie went to Newton to work at Bethel Hospital when she was about 19 or 20.  She worked there 10 years before she got married.  Florentine was about 12 when she started to work during the summer.  I was 14 when I went to work for a family that had 10 boys.  I worked there 2 summers, they said I was good help and would pay me 4 dollars a week.  I thought that was a lot in those days.  With the first money I got I bought a bible which has been a comfort to me through many a trial.  I used to be so very homesick when I worked away from home and I cried a lot, then I would read from the bible before I went to bed and it helped.  While I was there one of the boys wanted to know if I would be his sweetheart.  I walked home Saturday evenings, then one time one of the older boys said he would take me home with a horse and buggy yet.  He stopped someplace on the road and asked me to marry him.  I said no and he said then he would never get married but he did before I did.

When I was 12 I sort of had my first date or I thought I did.  Was not really, it was a party and they all paired off.  Just he and I were left so sent walking up and down the driveway.  Then I thought maybe I would get married before long, and started my hope chest, but did not marry till I was 24.

The boys also started to work at an early age, all but the younger ones, Jake and Isaac.  They stayed home and helped after papa died.  All of us got married but John.  He was not too well in his early years.  Later he enlisted in the army, got a 4F, doctor said he would not live to see 30, but lived to be 77 years old.  Florentine got married when she was 18.  Katherine and I worked and took turns going home for the summer to help.  While I was working at Bethel Homes, Florentine needed an operation, so had to go help out there, she had the little ones by then.

After that I went to work at Halstead Hospital, pay was better there than in Newton.  I liked all those places.  Katherine had to help at home that summer, later she came and worked there also.  The next summer was my turn to go home to help, did not want to go too bad, there were 14 girls working there and we had so much fun.  We roomed on the 4^th floor of the hospital, did not have to pay room and board.  Also had sort of a boyfriend, he wrote to me while I was at home, that helped.  In our neighborhood at home we had parties Sunday nights when we did not have church, at different people’s homes.  Brother Abe was kind of the leader, he played French harp, while we played swinging games as we called them.