Author: Ron Guenther
Written: September 24th, 2013

Well, Big Don, let me start out with the next installment. But first, let me make a correction. I said the family started out after WWI, I meant before the end of WWI. Uncle George shot grandpa in the head in the early spring of 1918 and that is when grandpa decided that he and the Stead brothers should no longer be in business together. Grandpa did not seem to hold it against Uncle George, though. Another thing, the Guenthers did not have a lot of close neighbors and so the three children pretty much did a lot together, they even ended up talking a lot alike. For example, everyone of them said, “for Peter’s sake” rather than “for Pete’s sake” and said “indegrunts” instead of “ingredients” and things like that. They played croquet together and their rules were the ones that we ended up using. For example, officially, if you hit another ball, you get two shots. So, you gently tap the opponents ball out of range of the wicket and then you go through the wicket. Well, they figured out that when you hit another ball, you “knock it out of the park” and that pretty much settles it for the rest of the game, particularly if you are then allowed to go through the wicket. They did not play a gentleman’s game, their game was a nasty one, they played for keeps. So that rule had to be changed. If you hit another ball, you get one shot, period.
The part about grandpa dressing up in a suit to farm is only partially right. When his father was alive, he worked side by side along with the other farm hands and dressed accordingly. After he started to farm, things changed somewhat. In the evening he would go out and survey what needed to be done the next day. Then early the next morning, he dressed up in a suit and greeted the farm hands. The farm was large and there was no modern equipment, so the crew was a large one by modern standards. I am not sure how many there were, but there were several. This would be in the early morning. He would give the orders about what needed to be done and then dismiss the crew. He would go to his study and pore over these volumes of Emanuel Swedenborg. In the late morning, then he would get on his work clothes and head out to see how the work was coming along, pitch in where needed, make sure they knew what was still to be done, then call in the crew for the midday meal. That afternoon went more like the midmorning. Depending on the time of the year, he might rest after the meal and then head back out or he would go out immediately. He was more of a hands on farmer than just one who dressed up in his suit. That set the tone. Some how in his mind, that showed the farm hands that he was in charge, that he meant business.

At any rate, he started to plan the trip out West. For that he bought a seven passenger chandler car. The children all got nice new clothes, all khaki, pop claimed they all looked sharp and snappy. Since school was still going, they waited until school was out, grandpa had leased the farm. He could not drive, in fact, he never learned to drive. So, he got Uncle Arch to do the driving and of course Aunt Dee came with and they started out. The trip from Iowa to Spokane was long. The roads were poor and everything was slow. It was just after that that our Grandfather Joseph Delsman got his first car and my mother could still hear him exclaim: Look at that, we are going 25 miles per hour. Nobody would ever want to go faster than 25 miles per hour.” That was in the mid 20-s and this was 1918. The trip out took five or six days, they camped on the way, grandpa Sam hated to stop and so they just stayed in the car and made what headway they could. They pulled into Spokane late one morning. Aunt Elisabeth was delighted to see them and prepared a huge meal. They had been on rather short rations all the way out and so were just starved, as nearly as I can tell, the children were like little hooligans. The first thing that pop did was snatch a big potato and put it into his mouth. Aunt Elisabeth frowned and started to say grace. That grace went on and on and on and pop had that hot potato in his mouth. In the end he said it burned his mouth but that did not stop him from eating. Grandpa fell asleep during grace and that miffed Aunt Elisabeth. So it all went. It was obvious to grandpa Sam that he would not be able to get a brick factory going there in Spokane. All the houses were wood. I am not really sure if he wanted to get a brick factory going anyway, but that was the excuse. So, after a couple of days there in Spokane, they decided to head to the coast. They drove through several towns including Tanasket, Washington where in the end, Uncle Arch and Aunt Dee ended up settling. But in the meantime, they kept driving and driving and on labor day, drove into Coos Bay, which in those days was called Marshfield. Well, there was no question about it, they had to stop. Grandma Alice insisted that the children go to school, so they rented a place, Uncle Arch and Aunt Dee took the train back to Iowa, they sold the car and settled in for the school year. Aunt Berchion was in the 6th grade and it was there that she met a boy that she really liked and he liked her. It was love at first sight already at that age. That was our Uncle Cliff Perry. The house they had rented was not too far from the Perrys and so they saw a lot of the Perry family and got to know them very well. Berchon and Cliff stayed in letter contact ever after that. The war came to an end, and the family headed back to Iowa by train. They got back home just in time to get the summer crops in and then they heard that several of their neighbors who were German sympathizers were going to Peru. Peru was opening up land and invited Germans and Americans of German ancestry to come to Peru and there were many who were taking them up on that. The time was 1919 and grandpa Sam thought this was a great opportunity. So, grandpa and a number of the neighbors started to make plans to head down to South America. That took some logistics, of course, and then school came, pop went to the 2nd grade in Iowa and at the end of the school year, they headed to Iowa City to catch the paddle wheeler to New Orleans where grandpa could get the ship to go to South America. The Panama Canal was new and had opened at this point and so the trip was to be a rather short one.

To be continued.