The Origin and History of the Languis and DeRoe Families

Transcription

1 1 The Origin and History of the Languis and DeRoe Families When Sena was 18 or 19 years old, she married a young farmer whose name was Elsa DeRoe (then pronouned De Roo). They took a timber claim of 40 acres in western Michigan. At that time, that part of Michigan was solid timber so thick the trees had to be debarked to find one's way around and not get lost. They made a small clearing and built a log cabin to live in. Then they began clearing out the land, selling logs to a sawmill for money to live on. After the trees were cut, the stumps had to be dug out. Because the soil was sandy and the trees were so thick, the roots were not too deep. If all went well, they could clear about one half acre a year. As the land was cleared, it was planted to crops like corn. But mostly they raised potatoes, beans and pickles that were sold to a canning factory. After about eight years, a forest fire broke out. There had been no rain for quite a spell, so the fire traveled fast. All the people who lived in that part of the timber, fled to the clearings that had been made by those who had been there much longer. Those who had a few cows and horses, a pig or two and maybe a goat and what clothes they had moved everything to those clearings. The two men went out to fight the fire by setting backfires hoping to stop the fire from burning the whole forest and all the homes in it. After several days, it started raining and that stopped the forest fire before the DeRoe place was burned. It was soon after that Mr. DeRoe became ill. He had inhaled so much smoke while fighting the fire that his lungs were damaged. He soon died leaving Sena, his wife, a widow with five children. Sena and her family then moved into town - Zealand, Michigan, where her parents lived. In order to support her family she did laundry and housework for the more well-to-do folks who could afford such services. After some time, she married a widower, John D. Yong, who had two teenage sons. He

2 2 was quite a bit older than she and he owned and operated a sawmill which was a good business. These were good times from them, but again things turn bad when he took sick with pneumonia and died. His two teenage sons took over the sawmill where they had been working and soon abandoned their stepmother and her children who were getting to be teenagers by that time as well. About that time, a farmer with eight children lost his wife. They live about 4 miles from New Zealand where Mrs. D. Roe (now Mrs. DeJong) lived. His name was Garrett John Languis. He also had been born in the "old country" but just across the border in Germany. His mother had two sons and a daughter by a former marriage who was not yet married. They spelled the family name Longhuis or Langhuis, which is the Old Dutch spelling of the name and means "long house." His mother then married an older bachelor named Kuiper. He was quite rich but Garrett's step-brothers and sister did not like him at all. The mother became pregnant and had a son but she died in childbirth. Not liking the child's father, the children took the baby and moved into the Netherlands across the border and named him Garrett John Langhuis. While he was yet a small boy, his brothers and sister moved to the United States and settled in Michigan. Up until the time they came to the United States, they spelled the family name Langhuis. When grown to manhood, Garrit married Sena Welphaar and raised a family of four boys and four girls. Mr. Languis was a good friend of Mrs. DeJong's brother Martin DeHaan. He was a cobbler who made and sold shoes, mostly wooden shoes. It was through his influence that Mrs. DeYong and Mr. Languis became acquainted. After a year of courtship the two families were united; the new family had 13 children and two adults. One of the DeRoe girls married Martin Bouwens, a young man from Nebraska, who had been visiting in Michigan. Martin Bouwens is Beverly (Languis) Holden's grandpa. They moved to Nebraska in the 1890s to a farm where Harold Hesser now lives.

3 3 One of the girls, Sena, married Louis Stemmler, a young farmer from Washington. The other, named Hannah married Peter Kimmey, also a farmer who owned a farm in Michigan. This brought the family down to 11 children and two adults. John, the older son of Mr. Languis, decided he wanted to follow his sister Sena to Washington and get a job, which he did. The oldest De Roe's son, John DeRoe, decided to follow his sister to Nebraska and also get a job; and he did. It was now 1904, and a new addition was added to the family now 10 people, bringing it up to 11 again. This new edition (baby) was named Martin, after Martin DeHaan, who had played Cupid and who promised a pair of shoes to the baby if it was named after him. I am that only son of the DeRoe-Languis union; at this writing (August, 1983), I am the only one still living to give an account of the origin and history of the DeRoe-Languis family. A family tree of the DeRoe family has been compiled by Merna Myers who is a daughter of John DeRoe and the Dena Boevink. Merna is now living in Panama, Nebraska. Martin Languis Family Martin, who was born in Michigan, was baptized in the Christian Reformed Church after the family moved to Nebraska. He was taught in catechism and Sunday school. As a teenager he served as Sunday school treasurer for one year before he was married. At the age of 22 he made his confession of faith and joined the Pella Reformed Church. He served two two-year terms as deacon and after one year off, he was elected elder. He served two two-year terms as elder. At that time when Martin and Mae bought the locker, they moved to Panama where they joined the Panama Presbyterian Church by letter of transfer. After one year he was elected elder there and served two three-year terms. But now back to family history. In the spring of 1906, the Languis family moved to Nebraska 2 miles east of the Pella church. The two oldest sons, doing their jobs working on farms, as hired man leaving Mr.

4 4 Languis with the two teenage boys Roy DeRoe and Mannus Languis and Garrett and Martin in grade school. Within a few years, Reca Languis married Peter DeBoer; Maggie DeRoe married Abraham Bouwens, living as a farmer near Panama. Henry Languis was also hired out as a hired hand who soon married Anna Heitbrink and also started farming. John Languis, who by now had come home from Washington also married a Heitbrink girl, Dena. Farming was their occupation also. By now, the family was down to four boys and one girl, Minnie, who was engaged to another farmer on Christmas day. The father was beginning to lose his health in 1915, and after an illness of 18 months he passed away leaving Mrs. Languis with a teenager and Martin Languis now 11 years old. At that time Mannus Languis was engaged to Sena Mulder and in 1916 they were married and again started farming. Now, the family was down to three boys Roy D. Roe, Garrit and Martin Languis and their widowed mother. The farm they were living on was sold so they had to move. They rented a farm 2 miles south and one quarter east into Otoe County. It was there that Martin grew up as a teenager working on his mother's farm. After grade school he worked on the farm in the summer; but in the winter he would trap furbearing animals for spending money to buy his own clothes. His mother could not buy them for him because farming then was a bare exixtence, not like it is today. By now Roe also had left home and married Coba Vanderbeek. It was now 1925 and Mrs. Languis (Sena) was getting older and feeble and a life on the farm was hard for her. 5 TerMaat family In 1926, a widower named Lambritus TerMaat moved into the neighborhood. A mile south of the farm where Martin was born. That is where Martin Languis met Mae TerMaat; it came about in this way.

5 5 Mae s family had originally lived in Kansas. This family was known as Bert TerMaat. At the age of 18, Bert and Dora Lee, age 16, were married and started farming in hard times; they lived in a sod house where two of three children were born - Gertrude and Matilda (now known as Mae). Matilda TerMaat, born in Kansas, was baptized in the Prairie View Reformed church. At the age of 16, she made confession of her faith and joined the Holland (Nebraska) Reformed church. After moving to Otoe County east of Pella Church, she and her father's family transferred their membership to the Pella church where she was active in Sunday school teaching, teaching a class of small children. She remained a member there until she and her husband, Martin, moved to Panama. After five years she had her membership brought to the Panama Presbyterian Church. When Mae was three years old they moved to her mother's uncle s farm in Nebraska. This uncle, Jake Tillman and his wife had raised Mae s mother who was orphaned as a baby. After moving to their uncle s farm, more children were born: Walter, a son, and Florence (now Florence Languis, Ed Languis s wife and Dorothy. It was about 1918 or 1919 that Mae s family moved to Nebraska about 3 miles west of Panama on the farm now owned by Glen TerMaat. It was there that a fifth child was born, Dorothy. When Dorothy was a year and a half old her mother Dora, died of uremic poisoning which she contracted during the pregnancy. That left her husband and four children. Mae, now 16, was the eldest at home to take care of the year-old baby and keep house for her father. The next spring they moved to the farm where Martin and Mae met. The farms joined so they were close enough neighbors - only a mile apart. Courting days After a few brief meetings and a visit to their farm one evening in June, there was a church social and picnic in Pella. I asked to take Mae home as it was late.

6 6 We drove in my mother's model T. Ford to her home and we started talking telling each other about ourselves and our experiences. Time went by so fast. Neither one of us had a watch. We forgot about the time. Then the morning sky became red in the east and we knew we were in trouble with the folks, as we knew they would be worried. My mother met us at the door demanding an excuse; I knew she would not believe me anyways so I said nothing. For punishment Mae's father took his family visiting every night for a week and stayed up late for us not knowing enough to come in the house when we came home. It was not until late fall that we were allowed to date again. In Adams, Nebraska they have a small theater and Uncle Tom's cabin movie was showing for a week. We were allowed to go to that movie. Going back to the first time I first saw Grandma Mae before we dated; my brother Garrett had bought some oats on the sale of the man (Herman Boevink) who lived on the farm before the TerMaat family moved there. The oats was in the bin where it was when we first bought it. My brother and I went to get the oats. We did not have a truck in those days, so we hired a team of horses and a wagon. As we drove on the yard no one was around, so I had to go to the house to let them know what we were there for. As I approached the house, grandma Mae came to the door before I had a chance to knock; she was standing on the porch which was about three steps up and I was still on ground level below. I looked at her and she looked at me and I told her who I was, why we were there and that we were neighbors. I explained that we bought oats on Herman Boevink's sale and we were coming after the oats. She said, "Pa is in the barn; go tell him. As she was standing there I noticed she had a large hole in her stocking and her dress was too large as she only would have weighed 90 pounds, and the dress would have fit a much larger person. And I also noticed her hair was a dark brown and put up very neat and she had the blackest eyes I have ever seen. By that time her father came out of the barn and my attention was drawn away from her, at least for the present. He helped us load the oats and invited us to come and see them sometime; and soon thereafter we did call on them.

7 7 Now back to our courting days: After the late night and the movie, we started to date more; but were not allowed to date more than once a week; so we saw each other once a week or, mostly on Sunday nights. We could go out during the week if there was a weekday picnic, but then not on Sunday. The next fall we were allowed to see each other more often. One night in October, it had rained during the day enough for the road to become muddy; there was no rock or gravel in those days. I was allowed to drive the model T car, because I'd been planning to buy it from my mother soon. As I had driven there early in the evening, the mud was still soft and some had gotten on the brake drums. While I was there, the wind turned to the north and became very cold freezing the mud on the wheel and the brakes. It was about midnight when I left to go home, and as I tried to back up the car, it was froze down tight. There was a pump back a ways behind the car; and I knew it was there but I was thinking only of getting the car loose and forgot about it. After a few tries a car came loose and jerked back right on to that pump. I got out, and I could not see any damage; it looked okay to me, so I went home. But alas, the pipe had been broken off and was hanging only by the pump rod. When Mae's father tried to get water the next morning he saw my tracks and the broken pipe. We had just started picking corn and our fields joined. We were both coming to the fence line and Mae s Dad had gotten there before I did; so he waited till I came to the end where he was waiting. I was wondering what that was about, as I noticed when I said good morning that his face was not like it had been before; and did I get the works for breaking his pump! He told me what I had done and told me to fix that pump, not tomorrow, but today! So I did not pick corn that afternoon. I took some tools and the pipe jack we had, took that pump apart, took it to town to a blacksmith who was a good friend of my family and had the pump repaired. I had the pump back together and working before he came home from

8 8 the field with a load of corn he was picking. I did not go back there anymore that week; I was so mad, I said to myself that I would not go back there ever. The next Sunday at church Mae and I talked. The whole deal was forgotten. After that we were allowed more freedom; but her father never said he was sorry for acting the way he did about that pump. Now I see things as being funny but they were real problems then. Marriage Hard Times In 1926, we were engaged. I gave Mae a diamond which she is still wearing at this writing. We were married February 1, 1928, in the Pella parsonage by Rev. Peter Seigers who died a short time afterward. The next day, on February 2, 1928, we moved to a farm we had rented and started a home of our own. The farm is 1 mile north and 1 mile east of the Pella church. It was there that our oldest son Lester, was born on August 4, We had good crops for a couple years and we were getting along pretty well. But in 1930, the man who owned the farm died and his children wanted to sell the farm so we had to move. We got a chance to rent the farm on which I had lived the last 10 years, when we were courting, so back we went. In 1931, Marlin was born. Things were getting worse, as the price of grain and livestock started going down. The cattle, I had bought when we moved there and which had eaten all the grain I had raised, brought less than what I paid for them a year before. The next year was not much better, but we did all break even was a year of complete crop failure. No oats, wheat or corn grew to harvest. We had to go to Auburn, Nebraska; to buy feed as no one around had any feed to sell. In 1935, we had about half the crop. Oats made about 10 bushels an acre, wheat 15 bushels and corn 20. I had planted 60 acres of corn and I had to give 2/5 for rent leaving us 500 bushels for our share was another bad year, although we did have a good wheat crop. That was the year Shirley was born. She was a very small baby weighing only 5 pounds.

9 9 We had trouble getting food to agree with her. When she was eight weeks old she was only 4 1/2 pounds. We were afraid we were going to lose her, but the Doctor put her on a sour milk formula and then she started to grow. It was still depression, and I sold my hogs for three cents a pound. I had to sell my cattle and good milk cows for $16 a head; and we were down to four mules, six cows, two brood sows and about 150 chickens. At this point we were able to get government help to buy feed; but I had to pay all that back with interest. House Work Was Hard Washing: Grandma Mae now had three children to take care of. Washing was all done by hand with water carried uphill about 150 feet from the well and heated in a large copper kettle on a cook stove. Then it was put in a wooden washing machine that was run by a hand crank. First the white clothes than the darker clothes were washed in the same water and last but not least, overalls and socks. But then the clothes were rinsed in clear cold water and hung up on the clothesline outside to try. The soap that was used was bar soap often homemade with lie and lard that had become rancid; they became rancid as there were was no freezer to keep them from going bad. The homemade soap was often very hard and had to be sliced or crushed so it would dissolve. Clothes were washed in this manner. After the water was hot and the soap dissolved, it was put in the washing machine. First the white clothes were washed, sometimes two loads, then the towels, then the dark clothes and last but not least the socks and overalls. After each load wash washed for twenty minutes to half an hour, the clothes would be run through a hand cranked ringer into a tub of cold water for a rinse. After that the rinse water was used to mop floors. This work was mostly done on Monday, which was wash day, and all the shirts, dresses,

10 10 and towels had to be ironed after they dried outside. They were ironed with flat irons heated on the cook stove because all clothes were made of cotton and wrinkled badly. During the extreme heat from the cook stove, it was almost impossible to cook on the wood burning stove. So we had a chance to buy a coal oil - kerosene stove with two burners. We had to set it on the floor because it had no stand. It sure was not modern, but did not give off so much heat like the cook stove. Only on washing days and bread baking days, did Mae used a wood burning stove. Ironing was done at night when it was a little cooler. Lester s Burn: One morning before Shirley was born and Marlin was just a baby Grandma Mae was doing her washing and I was out working in the field cultivating corn. She had just filled the washing machine with boiling water. Lester was playing nearby and while Grandma Mae stepped into the kitchen to get clothes she had sorted for washing, Lester pulled the stopper out of the side of the washer which was used to drain the machine and the boiling water gushed out over his leg and burned him badly. He was about three years old and it was a first-degree burn. Grandma may have read sometime before that in the case of a burn, baking soda was good to use so she packed his leg with baking soda wrapped in a wet towel, put the boys in the car and came to the field where I was to tell me what the problem was. I tied the team to the telephone pole and we started for the doctor in Adams which was about 8 miles away. Grandma Mae was crying; Lester was crying and Marlin who was only one and a half was so confused he just sat between us. Grandma was holding Lester and before we were very far down the road he stopped crying and was talking about the horses and houses along the road. When the doctor unwrapped the towels and saw all soda, he said he had never seen anyone do that before but it sure was a very good first-aid treatment as it seemed to draw out all the pain of the burn. Drought It was now 1934; the beginning of a drought year and the depression had already started. It was a very mild and dry winter with hardly any snow and no spring rain; there was just

11 11 enough moisture to sprout the oats and corn but no rain after that, and the oats and wheat were so short we had to mow them with the mower, as they were not tall enough to cut with a binder. The oats was used for hay; wheat made three bushels an acre and the corn never got over 3 feet tall and dried up to nothing. We survived that year on what we had left over from the year before was somewhat better. We got had about half a crop, and the wheat was fair, but sold for a low price at $.90 a bushel. I remember that winter we had very cold, bad weather with a lot of snow. The boys never got to school for four weeks as we lived 2 1/4 miles which was too far for them to walk in zero weather, and the roads were blocked with snow. We finally got the road open which had to be done shoveling by hand. We were out of everything to eat, except eggs and milk. Now and then we would kill a chicken for meat, but we had no coffee, tea or anything to make a meal. Our neighbors were all in the same shape, so we worked together to open the road. By going through the field for half a mile, we were at last able to get one lane open out the road. The road was open east and west. My neighbor and myself started out hoping to get the Adams or Panama, but that was not possible. The east-west road to Firth was open; and believe me we sure did load up on groceries. We did have some eggs and cream to sell but not enough for all the things we bought. Well, then the weather cleared up and until spring we were able to get around really well. Dust storms: In the summer of 1936, the dry weather of the 30s, which started in 1934, covered nearly all of the US, Texas, Oklahoma the Dakotas and nearly all the Western states. Whenever the wind would blow, it would be very dusty. The dust piled up in fencerows like snow banks. After a spell of windy days the sky was so full of dust, when you would look at the sun all you could see was a bright spot. One day after hoping and praying for rain a dark cloud appeared in the west. It was a slow moving cloud. It was about three in the afternoon and it became so dark the chickens went to roost. The wind turned to the west and the dust was so thick we could hardly breathe. There were some clouds with it, as a few drops of mud fell making a big

12 12 mess on windows. This lasted about two hours. The sky cleared and the chickens came back out trying to find something to eat. We had about two more dust storms but none as bad as the first one. After that we started to get a few showers of rain and the next year everything went back to normal. When we think back to those times we cannot be thankful enough for our blessings now. Grasshoppers: That year, 1936, we had a good wheat crop for the winter moisture was good, but no corn and oats grew. That year not only the dry weather but also the drought over the whole nation was favorable for grasshoppers to hatch in the Western states. We heard about them having power problems with hoppers but did not think they would affect us; one morning we awoke very funny looking sky. By noon we could barely see the sun and the sky was so full hoppers it was like a cloudy day; the next day some of the hoppers had landed, but not nearly all of them. If all of them had landed, nothing growing would have been left. As it was, anything outside like pitchforks or clothes on the line was eaten full of holes and could not be used. Fork handles were so rough we had to sandpaper them smooth so we could use them again. Memorable Family Events Tractor: As the drought continued, feed was short and we started to think about trading our mules for a tractor, which had become popular with many farmers at the time. They seem to be quite successful and we started looking at different types. This was now 1936, and Lester was seven and Marlin was five. The boys were all excited about Dad getting a tractor, so every time I would look at one, they had to go along. Well, one day there was a salesman in Adams selling Allis Chalmers tractors. As we talked about trading, the man said he would come out and look at my mules for a trade. That same afternoon the man came out and I was in the field preparing some ground for wheat. Lester showed him where I was working and while waiting for me to come to in from the field, he was telling Lester what a wonderful tractor Alice Chalmers was, and all the things you could do with it.

13 13 After looking at my mules and what he would give me for them, I knew I could not make a deal with him. The salesman went back to town and Lester walked home from the field and I went back to work. When I came in from the field, Lester met me and said, Dad, did you trade? I said No, and I said that I could not trade that way because we did not have enough money to deal. I went about doing chores as usual I did not see Lester but thought nothing of that. But it was strange because he was always where I was; I thought maybe he was helping his mother with her chores. At that time she was carrying Shirley and not feeling to good at times. When I came back to the house I did not see him. Marlin was playing in the yard by himself. Mae had not seen him either, so we started looking for him in their bedroom; he was not there. We called for him and then we heard someone crying in the back corner of the porch way away behind our cream separator. He was sitting cramped up behind it crying his heart out. We asked him what the matter was. Dad won t buy that tractor, was his reply. Well, I tried to tell him that we could not buy that one. I told him we could do better dealing for a John Deere. Well, he told me how much better an Allis Chalmers was than a John Deere. I realized then what a good job of selling the Alice Chalmers the salesman had done on him. About two months, we made a deal for a John Deere. The sale price for that tractor was $750 as a down payment and one team of mules for $250. That left $500 to be paid in five payments of $100 each plus interest. This must have satisfied Lester because he has had nothing but John Deere equipment since he started farming. Shortly after we have the tractor, I also bought a corn Binder and so did custom work with it so is to pay for the tractor. We had nothing but a horse-drawn machinery. So we built hitches on the lister, cultivator and disk and I would ride them and Lester would drive the tractor. One reason we got the John Deere was because it had a hand clutch and the Allis Chalmers had a foot clutch which Lester could not reach. But he was too small to pull the hand clutch on the John Deere. So I tied a rope to it and when I wanted to stop I would pull it out of gear. At the age of 10, he was doing nearly all of the farming for me as he could handle it almost as

14 14 well as I. Car accident: We lived 2 1/4 miles from school. In the winter, I almost always brought them to school; but in the spring and fall, they mostly had to walk. As a boy I myself never lived closer than that to school. It was the same school. I attended all my school years in District 22 - Wooden Shoe School. In the years when we lived in a Otoe County and lived 2 1/4 miles from school and before the boys had the pony, one morning I was taking them to school. They had no overshoes because we did not have money enough to buy them. We drove an old 1928 model A Ford sedan. It has snowed about 2 inches. As we approached a bridge which was always quite rough I applied the brakes, and as I did the car went into a skid turning completely around facing the way were coming and tipped over on its back in a ditch. No one was hurt, but we were trapped in the car. Lester thought we would not be able to get out so he said, Dad shall I kick out a window? because we were not able to open the doors. I said, No, we can roll down the window. (up in this case) which we did and we crawled out safely. Then the boys had to walk the rest of the way to school in about 1 1/2 miles in the snow without overshoes. We were fortunate because one of the neighbors and his three teenage sons came along. They were looking for some livestock. They took a hold of the top of the car and lifted it back on its wheels. All the water had run out of the radiator and the oil was drained out of the crankcase. We put oil back in the crankcase and water in the radiator and it started and I could drive the car home. The top was badly damaged and it remained that way for as long as we ran the car. So it was our open-air taxi. It was about two years before we got something better. Those were what we now refer to as the good old days. Tony, the Pony: We thought it would be nice if they had a pony to ride. So we bought a part Shetland pony. His name was Tony. It was very cute and general but also very stubborn and lazy. If he did not want to go, he would just go far enough that I could not see them and then

15 15 he would stop and go so slow that they would be late for school. When they would leave I would wait a while and then take the car check on them. They would be only about one third of the way to school. I would get after him and he would buck the boys off and gallop home as fast as he could, and I could take the boys to school in the car myself. One day when we had a deal like that, Tony never showed up all day. He had run into the cornfield and stayed there until evening after the boys came home from school. Grease bucket: Now everyone had corn that they grew for fodder and we used a machine to chop it up for winter feed. That type of machine needed a lot of grease as to help it from wearing out. It was not equipped with graceless bearings as machines are nowadays. So you would buy my grease in a large 5 gallon pail. To fill your grease gun you would have to take the lid off fill the gun with a paddle or putty knife. One day I was late getting started and left the grease bucket lid off standing on the ground in the shed and I left the shed door open, too. Marlin, who was about three years old, loved to play in just such a type of thing. While playing he found the open bucket of the grease, and he proceeded to grease himself in good shape from top to bottom; from the top of his head to the bottom of his shoes he was one mess of grease. As luck would have it mother had a bar of lava soap, and with it she got all the grease out of his hair and off his body. When I came home that night, it was to a very unhappy wife and a very clean boy. I never forgot to put the lid on the grease bucket after that and to close to shed door too. Rats: The farm we moved to, after living for ten years in Otoe County, was infested with rats. They were everywhere in the house, barn, chicken coop, and everywhere you would go, there were rats. One day I made a remark that if we had some bull snakes we could soon be rid of the rats. One evening Lester came home from the pasture while getting the cows with a large bull snake wrapped around his neck holding its head in his hands. He had caught the snake out the pasture while getting the cows; that was part of his chores. He released the snake in a rat hole under the corncrib and in a few days he got another snake and before long we had snakes all over the place. It did help some getting rid of

16 16 some of the rats. One Saturday morning we took the boys to the Pella church, where they always attended Bible class. And we went on to do our trading. We told them that if we were not back when the Bible class was over to go to their Uncle Walter TerMaat, who lived at that time three quarters of a mile east of church. Their cousin, Duane, who was too small to go to Bible class, lived there. When Lester and Marlin came to Walt s place as expected, they started playing near the machine shed. Lester saw a snake stick his head out of a roll of slat cribbing beside the shed. He walked up to it and grabbed it out of the crib by the neck, think it was a bull snake. It was not; it was a rattlesnake. He threw it on the ground. Walter who was standing nearby, quickly took the stick and killed the snake; that was the end of the snake catching for Lester. After we moved to the rat-infested farm, the boys wanted a bicycle. As they did not ride the pony to school anymore, we sold it and bought a bicycle which they enjoyed very much. It did not balk like the pony did. Now back to the rats. Before we used this stage we had been told that rats could be gassed with the exhaust of a car. We had a model A Ford car at that time it was old but it was all we had. So the boys took an old bicycle inner tube which had been replaced, cut it apart with and slid one end of the inner tube over the exhaust pipe of the car; they put the other end in the rat hole in the driveway of the corncrib. As there were holes all over the others they plugged them up so the rats had to stay in their dens; then they started the car and let it run for a long time; that car exhaust gas sure did kill the rats. We knew because for a week the smell of dead rats was so strong you could not be near the corncrib. But the back pressure burned the valves on the car, so we had to have a repair job done. Ha!! Personalities: As the children grew the boys helped with the farming and Lester was always ready to help, but Marlin was inclined to books. He would help on the farm, but he would much

17 17 rather study, so as time went on and after high school Marlin went on to college and Lester stayed on the farm. At this time Lester was now in high school and activities took some of his time, so more chores were required by Marlin. He liked to imitate coyotes, and it would not be long until a real coyote would be howling back in the distance. He thought that was fun, but to me his Dad, it gave me a creepy feeling. Shirley was much younger than the boys and had just started to school. It was through the teacher and school nurse that we were informed that she had a hearing problem. We were told to have her tonsils removed which we did; but it did no good is as far as her hearing was concerned. By now both boys were in high school. When Lester graduated, he helped full time on the farm, but Marlin was inclined to school, so after graduation, he went to Peru State teachers College and started teaching school. Each summer he would take a course of summer school in order to get his degree. Shirley was still having problems. She could not understand what was said, and she had a very bad speech impediment. Marlin arranged to have her tested at a speech clinic at the University of Nebraska as he was going anyway. She was ready to start high school that fall and we were advised to have her fitted with a hearing aid which we did and she has worn one ever since. After living on the rat-infested farm we bought the farm on which lived the first three years of our married life and where Lester was born. When we moved there the second time, the buildings were deteriorated in the 16 years we had lived elsewhere, so we remodeled the barn, built a small tractor shed and a grain bin. One morning in the winter I was supposed to grind some feed for our neighbor and was servicing the tractor. Lester was doing some target practicing with his new 22 rifle

18 18 shooting a flock of sparrows that were congregating in a roll of fencing we had not yet gotten around to removing. About 3 rods further on, one of my brood sows was lying asleep along the fence. Lester did not see the sow until he shot. All of a sudden the sow started jumping and kicking as hogs do when shot; it was then he realized what he had done. He said, Dad, I shot one of your hogs. I said, Go get a knife. By the time I got to the hog, he had run to the house and got a knife and was there the same time as I was. We were able to bleed the hog. So we had a butchering job on our hands. This was not too bad as we were out of meat anyway, but we had not planned butchering that day. Sheep injury: Now back to the 30s and 40s the 40s and 50s. The boys decided they wanted to raise some sheep one of the neighbors had some very nice sheep and was going to have a sale he had never had any fence to keep them penned up, so they ran mostly at large coming to our place and the boys took a liking to them. So when they were sold, I bought them for the boys. This did not work out too well as we had to keep them in the same place as the hogs. They were always eating the grain we put out for the hogs so after a couple years of this we planned to sell them. But before we did there was one of the ewes who would always jump over the fence into the pen where the hogs for eating. I lost my temper a time or two and got in after her with a stick. One Saturday evening, while doing all chores, that ewe was again in with the pigs, I proceeded to put the feed in the trough thinking she had gone to the far end of the pen. While I was stooped over putting the feed out, she made a flying leap butting me right in the face and broke my nose. Lester was now old enough to drive a car and took me to Adams to the doctor, but the doctor was not home; so he wanted to take me to Panama where there was a doctor in whom I had no faith. I said to just take me home and I would set it myself. So when we got home I took some tape and set my nose straight by looking into the looking glass. The next day it had swelled badly and was very painful. So to relieve the pain I loosened up to tape a little, not realizing that when I did this, my nose would heal crooked. It did.

19 19 Motorcycle: That did it. We were going to sell the sheep anyways, so we did. Now the boys had some money which they shared putting it in the bank. The money was burning holes in their pockets. They wanted a motorcycle which they had been seen advertised. I was very much opposed to this, but they kept telling me how cheap it would run. Marlin who was now in high school and was driving my car, could ride it and save time and money. That sounded better since we had only one car. So I finally consented with the understanding that they would only ride where they were supposed to go and come right back home with no horsing around, for sure! That went good for a while but after a month of riding to school; one of Marlin s school friends talked him into giving him a ride after school. About 4:30 we got a phone call from Marlin to say he had an accident with the cycle. I went right to town; they were riding on a gravel road west of town. The bike skidded in the loose gravel and went into the ditch. I took them to Hickman to the doctor where they were given some first aid. They were not hurt too badly. Marlin s face was cut and he still has a scar on his chin. His shoulder was scrubbed pretty badly but he never told the doctor about that. When I got him home his mother saw blood on his shirt and saw what the matter was. That was the last time Marlin rode it, and he sold his share to Lester. He did a lot of courting on that motorcycle with Georgia Christenson who is now his wife. He also took a few spills but never got hurt. I tried to ride it once too, but that came to no good either. It was now the Korean War and Lester was drafted into the service of our country just after he had started him farming himself. He now had a Chevy convertible. Marlin was teaching school for district #44 and also had a car of his own so the cycle was not so much fun anymore. Lester wrote home saying to sell the motorcycle. I was not slow in putting an ad in to the paper. In a few days a call came and two boys from Bennet came to look at it. I sold it to the first buyer to come along. That summer was very wet and cold and I was trying to farm land we were renting and

20 20 my own too. It was more than I could handle. So Marlin stayed home from summer school as he had been doing other years and helped with farming. We were so late getting in crops that some corn and milo froze before maturity. The war ended before Lester had to go across. While still in the army, Lester and Georgia were married. She was teaching school. She finished her term of teaching, and Lester was released for service and started farming on the farm Georgia's father, Tony Christenson, and myself had rented for them. It was up a 200 acre farm plus 160 acres from Bill Mores. From farming to running a meat processing locker: I was still farming then and it was now My machinery was getting older and my arthritis was bothering me a lot so I wanted to get off the farm. So we traded our farm for the Panama locker and started butchering and processing meat there. The first year was very slow, so I was able to help on the farm quite a bit, but as time went on, business picked up and so we had no time for anything else. In 1958, I was stricken with kidney stones and was unable to work for a couple months. Lester and Tony Christenson did lots of the work for us and kept the business going. It was fortunate that my illness came during the wintertime, so they could do it for us. In about 1963 our son-in-law, Glenn Buis, wanted a job on Saturdays as his job was not enough to keep them going. About two years after that he started working for us full time. I was about coming to retirement age so I sold the locker to him and went on Social Security. I kept working for him as much time as I was allowed in order to be able to receive Social Security payments. Retirement and Chairman of the Panama Village Board: After moving to Panama for one year, Martin was elected to the village board; he served there for 16 years and 12 years as a chairman of the board. During that time he was influential in the installation of the sewer system. When it was paid off a movement was made to pave the streets. It was brought to a vote and passed and this $100,000 product

21 21 project also will be paid off in He was labeled as one of the great spenders of the town. After his retirement he spent much of his time in volunteer work for the church and the town planting, growing flowers downtown and caring for lawns. Added pages: 1. A Life History of Mart and Mae This short version was hand written by Martin Languis before the long version was written. On August 4, 1904, Martin was born, the youngest of a family of 13 children. He had 12 half brothers and sisters and he was the oldest of a family of one. He had two nieces and one nephew who were older than he. When he was two years old, the family of nine children to parents moved to Nebraska from Michigan. His father owned a farm of 40 acres there, a team of oxen and a team of horses. The farm and all the machinery a team of oxen were sold, but the horses, a new mowing machine and their furniture were loaded on a boxcar and shipped to Nebraska three days and three nights enroute to Firth. They moved to a farm 2 1/4 miles east of Pella church just in Otoe County. The family belonged to the Christian Reformed Church in Michigan. The only Christian Reformed Church in Nebraska was in Firth so the family would load up the wagon and then drive to Firth for worship. We were told to look the other way as we passed Pella Church, which was the Dutch Reformed Church, and was looked down on by those from the Reformed Christian Church. But before long the young minister from Pella persuaded them to come to Pella and soon they felt at home there and joined Pella Church. It was also a Dutch speaking church then as was the Languis family itself. Within a few years some of the family left home to start homes of their own. In 1915, Mart s father died. By then only two of his half-brothers and himself were left at home with their mother. In 1960, their home was sold and they had to move so they rented a farm 2 miles south (where Jake Bouwens lived in the 1980s) also in Otoe

22 22 County. Mart attended only one school from kindergarten to eighth grade, called Wooden Shoe #22. Mae (Matilda) TerMaat was born on February 15, 1908, in a sod house about 2 miles from Prairie View, Kansas. She was the second child of Lambertus (Bert) Ter Maat and Dora Perl (maiden name was Lee) TerMaat in a family of five children, four girls and one boy. Will TerMaat, Bert's youngest brother already live in Nebraska about 3 miles west of Panama. In 1919, the family moved to Nebraska and settled on a farm about 3 miles west of Panama where Glen TerMaat lives now. In 1924, her mother died. Mae's older sister Gertrude was already married. Mae was the oldest child at home, so it was up to her to take care of the family, housekeep, and look after her youngest sister, Dorothy who was 1 1/2 years old. In 1925, the TerMaat family moved to a farm a mile south and two miles east of the Pella Church. That farm was also just into Otoe County. Since the two farms joined each other, Martin and Mae eventually became acquainted. Later that summer, they started to keep company. They were allowed more than one date a week only in case of a picnic or church social (that happened twice). After three years of courtship they were married. They lived for three years on a farm 1 mile north and1 mile east of Pella Church. Lester was born there on August 4, On March 1, 1931, they moved to the farm where Mart had lived for 16 years before they were married. They lived there 10 years and it was there that Marlin was born November 19, 1931, and Shirley was born on August 18, This is the period of drought and depression. In 1934, there was a complete crop failure with 116 heat through June and July and never below 100. In 1935, we raised only 10 bushel an acre corn and 5 bushel wheat and oats. In 1936 we did raise some wheat, but it only brought about $.90 a bushel. In 1941, we moved back into Lancaster County, 1 mile south and a mile and a mile east of Panama. In the spring of 1946 we bought the farm where we started out when we were

23 23 first married. We lived there until 1995 when we sold our farm to Emery Bouwens who owned the Panama locker. We took the locker in on trade - our farm for the locker and a house in the town of Panama. We added a slaughtering room to the back of the locker where we did our own slaughtering of beef, hogs, sheep and goats. We operated the plant by ourselves. I did the butchering and cutting and mother did all the wrapping until we need more help so then we had Glen, Shirley's husband, come on Saturdays for a while. 2. The Ups and Downs of our Fifty Eight Years of Married Life by Martin Languis Note: By request of our grandchildren, I will try to write down the ups and downs of our married life. On February 1, 1928, at 7:30 PM in the Pella parsonage, we were married by Rev. Peter Seigers. We were married in the presence of my mother, my half-brother Garrett Languis, Mae s father, her elder sister Gertrude and her husband Albert Weavers. It was a no ring ceremony as we were not able to buy them. There were no presents other than 45 brown leghorn chickens given to us by Mae's father when we moved to our home the next day. The brown leghorns were older than the white chickens, and laid brown eggs which were not so valuable as, so we had to catch the chickens to separate them from the flock the morning after our wedding. After the ceremony we had lunch at her father's house. The guests were Mrs. Sena Languis, (my mother), Garrett Languis, Mrs. Gertrude TerMaat (Mae s grandma), Anna TerMaat, (Mae s aunt) who were living in her father's home at that time, Lambertus TerMaat, (Mae s father), Albert and Gertrude Weavers and Walter and Florence (Mae's brother and sister) who were as yet unmarried. For a honeymoon we moved what belongings we had to the home we were going to live in ahead of time. The home we were going to live in was vacant so we were able to move what furniture we were able to afford into the house. So all we had to move with clothes, which were not all that much. Mother had only two dresses, one for church and one for every day. I had raised some chickens but about half of them died as baby chicks.

24 24 So we had about 75 out of the 200 to start with plus the 45 from Mae's father that he gave us. So we had a nice flock of chickens. We were very proud of them. We had plenty of room in the coop because it was large enough for 300. I had bought five cows from my mother. I also owned four mules and the horse. These all had to be moved on our honeymoon. That day was very warm, partly cloudy and unusual with a large ring around the sun all day long. Later that season we had lots of rain. That night my brothers and sisters surprised us when they came with cake and sandwiches to chivaree us as was the custom with newlyweds, and that cost me the only ten dollars I had. So we had to get along for a week until we had eggs from the hens and some cream from the cows to sell. So we just lived on love that long. The day after we moved in and it started to rain, turning the snow about a foot deep. The roads had no gravel or blacktop, just plain old Nebraska sticky mud. When we had enough eggs and cream, I drove the team and wagon to town as we are only 3 1/2 miles from Panama. Now we could live on food again. Soon the chicken started laying better and the cows picked up in milk as they were getting accustomed to their new home. The furniture we bought was mostly used. Mae had made all our bedding beforehand which was the custom of a prospective bride. We bought our bedroom set and two rocking chairs new from a furniture store in Firth by Kent Auman. We bought our cook stove from Kline Hardware Store in Adams. Our living room table and chairs and buffet were from a used furniture store in Lincoln, all bought before we were married. We had no rugs, only bare wood floors which were very cold on bare feet in the winter. The house had a large wood burning furnace in the basement. All the fuel we had was a load of corncobs. So most of my time was spent cutting wood and picking up waste around the place which came in handy at that time. Two of the mules I had were unbroken so when we had a little time, we were working with them as they needed to be able to be used as soon as field work started. By now we were quite comfortable with a steady income of about five dollars a week from eggs and cream which was not too bad.