Pioneer Moments

Saturday was Angel Food Ministries Day. Every month, we have people of every socio-economic level come in to buy Angel Food. Once and awhile one will share a story of how without it, they wouldn’t have enough to eat for the month. We have a similar story in our own family, only God provided the Angel. Every family has stories of hardship, and “pioneer moments”; ours is no different.
The following is an excerpt from the “written” family history of Adam and Anna Wolf whom Mother was named after; Anna Mae Wolf Horack Roseberry(whew).

Great Grandma Anna Wolf
Great Grandpa Adam and Great Grandma Anna Wolf were both born in Germany, but were brought to America as very young children by their parents who settled in Illinois. Adam and Anna would move west to Kansas where they would homestead south and east of Wichita around the South Haven area close to a tiny town called Portland. When Adam and Anna Wolf first moved to their homestead, they lived in a dugout. Later they built a small shanty being about 12X14, and still later, built a house, a barn, and a milk house.

The shanty, that they later used as a chicken house


Adam and Anna Wolf and thier children at the house they eventually built
They eventually obtained their land under the Homestead Act of 1862, which stipulated a head of household who was at least 21 years of age could obtain 160 acres of public land by “proving up.” (Wouldn’t the lawyers have a heyday with that terminology today!?!) The requirement for “proving up” meant the homesteader had to live on the land, build a home, make improvements, and farm for five years. It cost a total of $18 to homestead—a $10 filing fee and $2 for the land agent at the time the land was applied for and $6 at the time of “proving up.” In lieu of living on the land for five years, homesteaders were given the option of purchasing the land for $1.25 an acre after they had lived on it for six months. Adam Wolf and Anna purchased their land in this manner; it cost $200 to purchase the homestead.
Now, in order to secure enough money to pay for his land and buy the supplies to feed animals and his family, Adam returned to St. Louis Missouri, a distance of 400 miles from home, to work as a waiter in a hotel.
During this time Anna, and at least two of the children, remained on the homestead in Kansas. Adam would send her money and write her letters, which the post master had to read to her, as she could not read English. For some reason, she ran out of money, the corn and grain for the livestock ran out and she also ran out of food for her children and herself. There was nothing else to do but seek help from neighbors. Leaving the children at home by themselves, she walked over 3 miles to a neighbor and tried to explain to the man in her broken English, which was in actuality more German than English, her situation. His response to her was, “You are young and strong, and you will make it and be just fine. Just go on home.”, and gave her nothing.
She continued to walk an additional half mile to the farm of John Fredrickson and asked for his help. Mr. Fredrickson loaded corn, wheat and oats for the animals, and what food he could spare in the wagon and took Anna home.
Anna never forgot the kindness of Mr. Fredrickson at a time of desperately needing help and being destitute. When she related the story many years later to her then daughter-in-law, Grandma Amy Wolf, she told her that she owed her life to Amy’s UNCLE John Fredrickson for his help and kindness to her during this season of her life. Yes, our Grandma Amy Wolf’s uncle John was the one that extended the hand of compassion and kindness to the family that would later become his nieces’ own family.

Adam and Anna Wolf had 10 children, two of whom died in infancy, (Christian, and Elizabeth). They were married for 62 years. Adam died at 86 years of age and Anna died at 87 years of age.

During these days when families are struggling financially, and some are losing their homes and “our metal is being tested”, this is a story to bear in mind. This is our heritage, this is “us”.

Waste Not, Want Not

Having grown up with a “depression era” Mom, we learned about recycling at a very early age. You didn’t throw anything away. We washed the bread sacks, and reused them, washed the aluminum foil and reused it, paper grocery sacks lined the trash can, and before it was all over, Mother was even using the empty plastic bag inside the cereal box to place between her meat patties, or pork chops or steaks to put in the freezer.“It doesn’t tear when it gets wet like wax paper does!”, she would say in response to my rolling my eyes at what seemed to be this extreme of “savings”.
Keeping butter containers, cottage cheese containers, any plastic container with a lid was a given, and when we moved Mother out of her house, we girls couldn’t help but laugh at the number of cottage cheese containers we found stacked up and ready for use in her cupboards. We teased Audrey at the time that we would keep all those as part of her dowry when she decided to marry.
Well, I am here to confess that the dowry is intact, and Mother would have burst with pride if she had been here to see what I discovered in my attic the other day. What I was doing in my attic is another story, but it led me to unearth a particular box, dusty, and dirty but closed tightly against the 16 years of accumulation of filth. As I pulled the box from beneath the others stacked upon it, I questioned myself about its contents. After all, I had been the one to fill it and seal it, and place it in the attic. What in the world could it be?
Imagine my relief, amazement, and sheer hysteria when I opened the box to discover several stacks of, you got it, plastic containers! Cottage cheese, ice cream, whipped topping, butter, you name it, and I’d saved it!
For one split second I seriously thought about resealing it, and placing it back in the attic for my children to some day run across and………..yea, you get it, and they would have too. However,upon closer inspection, the containers, after being exposed to extremes of the attic were stiff, and brittle, and not worth much, thus I pitched them. I couldn’t help but shake my head and laugh at the fact that for years that box of plastic containers had been in my attic paying homage to the fact that I DID recycle just like my mama had taught me. I was ready to deal with any surplus that came along. The reason they were in the attic, was because at the time of the move, I had enough recycled plastic containers in my kitchen cupboards that the multitude in the box were considered surplus!
I called my sister Anita to share with her that I had finally found the hidden family treasure of such great value; we both got a good laugh. But underneath, we also knew that the containers were just an outward sign of an inward lesson we had learned growing up with Mama: Don’t be wasteful!