It was spring of 1942 and a moving day for the Groves family. My father’s eyesight was failing and it was necessary to change from night watchman in the city to a new place of employment. My Uncle Jake offered his farm at the north edge of Freeman for the family to live. The wagon pulled up to the house and the moving began. First the beds were loaded and then the rest of the furniture, followed by the kitchen stove, the heating stove and the contents of the kitchen.
This was a small farm with 80 acres of tillable ground, an alfalfa field, a barn, a hog building, a small chicken house, three brooder houses and a long six-room building for laying hens. The farm basically was for producing eggs for my uncle’s hatchery in town.
The barn contained room for six cows to stand ready to be milked. The hog building contained a half dozen sows and at times many little piglets.
The small chicken house held about 250 laying hens, producing eggs for the family and for butchering when needed. The three brooder houses were for the early spring baby chicks. The long six-room building contained about 1,000 laying hens.
At various times of the year, the tillable ground was planted with wheat, oats and occasionally corn. But the main work of the farm was with the animals and the chickens.
On the main floor of the farmhouse there was a large kitchen, a dining room, a parlor, a bedroom and a washroom where the milk was separated. Upstairs there was one large bedroom, one smaller bedroom and a storage room.
After many trips of moving the contents of our house in town to the country, the farmhouse soon filled up. Three of the double beds were taken up to the large upstairs bedroom and one bed was placed in the smaller upstairs bedroom. The downstairs bedroom contained a double bed and a single bed. The rest of the furniture was put in the remaining main floor rooms. There was a small washroom at the main entrance to the house off the long, outside porch.
A vivid farm life memory for me were the times I spent exploring the many areas of the yard. It was quite the adventure taking it all in. I can’t forget our black German shepherd dog. Of course he moved with us and lived in a room of one of the outbuildings until he got used to being in a new place.
When the move was done and we were getting settled in our new home, my mother was found in the kitchen fixing a meal for the family. After a much needed dinner and doing some of the chores, my brother Lowell and I set out to gather eggs. Since there were so many chickens, the eggs needed to be gathered twice a day. After getting them all gathered, we packed them in the large egg cartons in the middle room of the large chicken house. This was quite a process but we soon caught on and got the job done. Any eggs that were cracked were put aside and taken to the house for immediate use.
Back in the farmhouse, the beds were all put together and looked very inviting to all our tired bodies after a long day’s work. It didn’t take long for us to get cleaned up and ready for a night’s rest. The next morning we woke to the sound of chickens cackling and knew the day of work was upon us and “life on the farm” had begun.
