as I needed the money.
We went to Barkley,
Maryland, but luck was
against us. We contacted
Diphtheria, that was going
around at that time, and on
Jan. 19, 1919 we lost
Kenneth. Virgil got very
sick but lived to be a
cripple all of his life.
He managed to outgrow it
somewhat. My wife, Stella,
was sick also but
recovered. For most of the
winter in Maryland I worked
with my team in the timber.
There were lot of chestnut
trees, some of them a
hundred feet tall. Since
Maryland was on the east
coast, at that time there
was a big demand for ship
timber. But they mostly
used oxen teams to move
that long lumber. It's
amazing how stout those
oxen are, They had as many
as three teams on one log
to drop it. Virgil, Elton
and I used our team of
horses and wagon to gather
up the limbs for wood as
there was practically no
brush to trim.
I began to get wise and
I could see that we had
made a mistake. I found
out that it's not money
that makes a family happy.
That was quite a blow with
all of the sickness. Thank
God that there's good folks
in that part of the U.S.
We found them there, but we
were too far away from
home. Thank God we had the
presence of mind to bury
Kenneth in a vault as we
weren't allowed to move the
body.from Maryland for a
year. We stayed the year
out by hiring to a farmer
by the name of Wall not far
from Ingleside, Maryland.
He was a bachelor. In the
meantime we sold some of
our possessions. But again
God was good to us.
We moved in with Mr.
Wall who had a house three
stories high. You sleep in
the third story as the
weather is so humid that's
the only place you can
rest. Then Mr. Wall gave
14on twenty dollars per
month for cooking and
keeping house. He paid her
extra cash for thrasher
hands. I got $365 for the
year. My home was free and
we got all the milk we
needed. Virgil and Elton
got one dollar a day for
three weeks for plowing for
wheat.
I raised a truck patch.
Mr. Wall came to Mom and
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said, "Mrs. Hirschy, how
are you for meat and lard?
We had plenty and left over
as Mom was very saving.
So, when we were at the end
of our year there, Mr, wall
gave Mom a can of lard to
take back to Indiana.
There were lots of Blue
Racer snakes there. When
plowing the farmer had to
keep a furrow horse. Mules
or donkeys were afraid of
snakes and won't walk in an
open furrow when it was
full of Blue Racers. After
wheat was shocked at
harvest time by the time
you went 80 rods and back
you would find a Blue Racer
laying over the top of a
shock of wheat, maybe six
feet long, sunning himself.
That meant head down on one
side and tail down on the
other side. As I was one
of the bundle pitchers, I
wore rubber boots so that
they couldn't crawl up my
pants leg. When a
copperhead raised up his
head you just hit him with
the full length of your
fork as they were getting
ready for a leap.
What I found to affect
me the most was the heat as
I had the wheat to shock.
Most days it was 106 in the
shade. There was a breeze
off of the East Coast shore
so if you kept moving, you
didn't mind it too bad.
Mr. Wall had a big acreage
to wheat - maybe 75 acres,
and yours truly shocked
most of it. That year
wheat was a prime crop.
When the wheat commenced to
turn white, the boss said
it was time to get the
binder out. After
threshing we hauled 100
bushels off to the elevator
seven miles away by wagon.
We did it with two mule
teams, with rope lines
running through the tongue.
So, that's the way we did
it in the early 19008 as,
at that time, there were
only a few tractors. Corn
was shelled or hauled to
market. Sheep and cows were
the main animals raised on
the farm. It was level
country where we lived.
We went to Dover,
Delaware once, and once we
took a ride by steamboat to
Baltimore on a vacation.
It was enjoyed by all as we
could say we all had a
steamboat ride. It was
great, but by then we had
decided to return back to
Indiana.
When the Fall of 1919
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arrived I sold one horse,
two mules, and a colt and
charted a train car for
Indiana. We loaded
household good, one horse
the family mare named
Ginger- 40 bushes of
potatoes that Mr. Wall had
given to us, a few
chickens, the family dog,
and the feed supply and
eats on a Monday morning.
The inspector came along to
check our tickets but the
family dog objected. So
the inspector just said,
"Where are you going?" We
said, "lndiana," and he
went on and didn't even
check our tickets!
The trip home was
absolutely beautiful. The
horseshoe bends through the
mountains was a beautiful
sight as I could see the
engine and caboose all at
the same time. It was a
beautiful sunshiny day.
What I didn't know then was
that they had chartered me
for Garrett, Indiana when I
actually wanted to go to
Wolcottville. But, anyway,
I eventually landed in
Wolcottville. I was almost
dead broke. Mom fared a
little better as when we
compared pocketbooks, she
still had ten dollars.
When we moved back to
Indiana we moved back into
the same house we left when
we went to Maryland. We
arrived back home with our
things, including the
potatoes. They came in
handy, because there were
hardly any potatoes that
fall in Indiana. I would
take a market basket full
of potatoes in to trade for
a week's groceries. In
the spring I sold three
bushels at three dollars
per bushel for seed
potatoes.
In the spring of 1920 I
moved on to the John Price
farm where I hired out for
two years. The two years
we lived there I fed sheep
in winter, as much as 700.
I was kept busy as I
shelled all the corn the
last three weeks before
selling. It was while we
were there that the Lord
gave us another son. Keith
was born Sept. 5, 1920. So
we sure had a house full of
boys. But we also missed
the one we left behind in
Maryland very deeply. I
had to make a special trip
out to Maryland to bring
his body back because of
laws of that time,
In 1922 we rented a farm
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