8. The News and the Visit ... THE FARM EAST OF PINE VILLAGE

While Robert was in Mrs. Russell’s class, the televised evening news on ABC, CBS, and NBC was spoken by a small fraternity of newscasters whose careers (for the most part) had started in radio. Headed by the most-watched Chet Huntley and David Brinkley (David not having worked in radio first) at NBC, the up-and-coming Walter Cronkite at CBS, and the least-watched Peter Jennings (who took over from Ron Cochran in mid-year) at ABC, the networks gave brief but effective summaries of world and national news. NBC and CBS devoted a half hour (6:30 until 7:00 on weekdays) to news, and ABC tried to compete with fifteen minutes. Chet Huntley and Walter Cronkite were recognized for their perfect command of language. In tones honed through experience in radio after World War II and sharpened by tough competition, they told of upheaval in Cuba, Pakistan, and Rhodesia. They described the suffering of refugees. They reported on President Lyndon Johnson’s repeated warnings about keeping troops in Vietnam until Communist threats were eliminated there. They covered the election of a woman named Indira Gandhi in troubled India (She would visit the United States in March.) and Leonid Brezhnev’s rise to the powerful position of General Secretary of the Soviet Union and Leader of the Communist Party in the U.S.S.R.

Robert’s perceptions of the news probably were shaped by the fact that, at age 11, he was beginning to understand much of what Huntley, Cronkite, and others said. He felt increasingly weighed down by news. People older than he likely took the news in stride, for many of them had lived through such traumatic events as the Great Depression, world wars, and, more recently, the Bay of Pigs and the Cuban missile crisis. Yet, from Robert’s perspective, the news was becoming more and more unsettling. In the fall and spring of 1965 and 1966, there were massive protests against the Vietnam War. There was racial unrest. The more the rock stars sang about love, the less attainable love became.

On December 9th, A Charlie Brown Christmas aired. Robert and his father were great fans of the Peanuts cartoon strip, and they and the whole family stayed glued to the TV set for the half hour of animated entertainment. Characters such as Lucy, Linus, and Snoopy moved and turned in ways that brought Charles Schulz’s two-dimensional newsprint cartoon drawings to life, and the voices sounded just right! The music was instantly memorable. When Linus stood on the stage and recited the Christmas story, it was a magical moment in television. Linus seemed to be trying to reassure a frightened, distressed, agitated nation that “tidings of great joy” were not fictional but real.

Ida announced that her friend Emmajeanette and Emmajeanette’s husband, Andy, were going to visit from their home in Westville. Such good news eclipsed the evening news, and Robert eagerly looked forward to seeing Andy and Emmajeanette.

When they parked their blue 1964 Chevrolet Bel Air under the sheltering arms of the giant catalpa tree, Andy hopped from the driver’s seat, strode around the front of the car, and opened the passenger door for Emmajeanette. She was wearing a long coat while Andy wore a jacket. With her half-clear glasses frames with darker tops that imitated the arch of her eyebrows and with her dark hair pulled in fashionable waves at least three inches up and around her face, Emmajeanette looked as if she had just stepped from a glossy advertisement in McCall’s.

Andy wore a pure white shirt beneath his jacket. A gold Speidel Twist-O-Flex watchband gleamed on Andy’s wrist. The tall and elegant Emmajeanette, who had worked as an office secretary, always smiled; the short and wiry Andy, who had worked in the post office, was always about to smile—as soon as he knew whether anyone had caught his joke! He had a squinting yet penetrating gaze from behind his glasses, as if he were sizing up his audience. Andy meant great fun!

With his hand lightly on Emmajeanette’s arm, Andy guided the love of his life through the front gate and up to the door of the house.

While Emmajeanette and Ida clasped hands and exchanged fond hellos, Joe greeted Andy with “That’s a good-looking car!”

“Luckily, it runs well, too!” Andy responded. “How are you, Joe?”

“I’m well,” Joe answered. “I’ve been thinking of buying a Bel Air. The Dowden family here in town wants to sell a 1963.”

“What color is it?” Andy inquired, turning to his wife. “I’m sorry,” he said to Emmajeanette. “I asked before you could.”

Emmajeanette smiled and said nothing.

“It’s white,” Joe replied.

Milton L. “Milt” Dowden could hang wallpaper better than anyone! Milt’s wife, Elsie, had given Ida a recipe for sour milk drop cookies that Robert’s mother included among her favorite desserts. Joe and Ida respected—and liked—the Dowdens very much. Robert sensed that his father had already decided to buy the car.

“A Chevrolet is a dependable car,” Emmajeanette offered.

“Joe, what do you call a Ford at the top of a hill?” Andy wanted to know.

Joe grinned and shook his head.

“A miracle,” Andy said, eyes twinkling.

Joe laughed.

“Ninety-nine out of a hundred Fords are still on the road,” Andy stated, eyes sparkling narrowly. “Only one could still be driven to the service station.”

Joe laughed even more loudly.

“And I haven’t even said hello to Charles and Robert,” Andy commented, turning to the boys. “Hello, Charles and Robert!” Taking everyone in a glance, Andy said, “Remember when we were at Brookfield Zoo? Robert, you were too little to remember. Charles was pulling Robert in a little wagon, and Charles started up too fast. Robert took a tumble out the back onto the sidewalk, and Charles turned around, saw what he had done, and said, ‘Oh! Pardon me, Robert!’ Charles was ever so polite after dumping Robert on the ground. ‘Oh! Pardon me, Robert!’” Andy chuckled.

Joe, Ida, and the boys followed Andy and Emmajeanette into the house.

The conversation flowed effortlessly for hours. In those days, most people did not lack for topics to talk about, and they had well-developed personalities shining through their sentences.

Ida stood to prepare the dinner.

“May I help you?” Emmajeanette asked, as she stood and followed Ida into the kitchen. Ida handed Emmajeanette a freshly ironed apron.

“Why don’t you make the rolls?” Ida suggested. “I was going to have your toffee dessert, but I ran out of chocolate and forgot to buy more. So we’re having sugar cream pie instead.”

Emmajeanette’s toffee recipe, which Ida’s family called “Emmajeanette’s dessert,” was a sweet concoction featuring crushed vanilla wafers, a rich mousse-like layer of chocolate that began as uncooked separated eggs, and whipping cream on top.

“I can make the toffee dessert at home,” Emmajeanette said, “and you make the best sugar cream pie I’ve ever tasted! I, for one, am delighted we’re having the pie!”

After a big dinner with everything except the iced tea having been grown on the farm, Andy and Emmajeanette had to leave to make what was then considered a fairly long drive back to Westville, the town where Ida held her first teaching position after graduating from Indiana State Teachers College and where her surrogate father, the Reverend Lowell Everett Morris, had served the Methodist Church. In those years before Ida had met Joe, she and Emmajeanette had struck up a lasting friendship. Later, when Emmajeanette had married Andy, she had simply iced the friendship cake with a husband having a wonderful sense of humor.

The house seemed unusually quiet without Andy and Emmajeanette, but it was a clean house! For several days before the visit, Ida had enlisted the help of Charles and Robert in scrubbing the house thoroughly. Joe needed to drive into town to place an order at the feed store, and Robert rode along. Whenever Joe’s pickup was about to pass an approaching vehicle, Joe raised his right hand and waved at the occupants of the car or truck. They waved in turn. When Joe pulled into the alley beside the feed store with its checkerboard paint scheme, Robert thought the news couldn’t be too menacing with such courteous motorists and amusing friends.  

My Father Said ... 4

My father, Joe Rhode, loved to talk about the days when threshing wheat was powered by steam engines. When Dad was growing up and when he became old enough to run an engine, his uncle Charley Cobb, who ran several engines in the vicinity of Pine Village, Indiana, taught Dad how to run steam. I ran my Case steam engine at shows for nineteen years, and I can attest to the fact that learning to run a steam engine is a steep learning curve! On the day after Christmas in 1996, my father recalled the days before his uncle had begun my dad's training in the operation of a steam engine: “My mother rarely would get up early enough to let me go with Uncle Charley [her brother] to the threshing. [Charley left to fire the engine] before dawn, you see. I had to wait until my grandfather could take me to see the Reeves engine later in the day.”

One of Fred Albright's Rumely Rigs in Pine Village, Indiana

My father continued, “The Max family’s Advance engine was scrapped as junk.” Incidentally, I have made sour milk drop cookies from Elsie Dowden’s recipe, which was handed down to me. The recipe came from Elsie’s mother. Elsie most likely baked the same cookies for the threshing crew surrounding the Advance engine on Jay Max’s ring.

The Other of Fred Albright's Rumely Engines

Dad said, “One of the [two] Rumely engines burned in a shed fire at ‘Oklahoma.’” An area of houses near the grain elevator was nicknamed “Oklahoma.” The two Rumely threshing rigs were owned by Frederick “Fred” J. Albright (1876–1965). Fred’s brother, Joseph R. (born 1861 or 63), ran one of the engines. My father remembered Fred as the owner of a grocery store in town. Although I have no proof, I think that Fred and Joe are standing beside the Rumely engine in a photograph that Eric Brutus gave me. Early one summer, a fire destroyed the shed where the engines and threshing machines were housed. Residents of Pine Village speculated that children had set the blaze. My father said that at least one of the engines and probably both threshers were lost.

Maybe Fred and Joe Albright Standing Near Rumely Engine

Dad also told of a Keck–Gonnerman steam engine that was purchased new in 1928 by the Fleming family south of West Lebanon. “It threshed for four years then sat unused for eight or nine years,” Dad said. “Then it was cut up for scrap during World War II.”

Fred Albright Threshing Near Pine Village, Indiana

On the 28th of November in 1996, my father told of a Huber steam engine north of town: “[The] water tank on the Huber was a wood-stave tank with a thin metal skin, which had rusted away on part of the bottom edge of the tank. I saw the tank smoking when the engine was threshing on a hot summer day of barn threshing at a tall barn in a low area where the heat was trapped. It was on [my grandfather] Tom Cobb’s farm. The engineer was Jake Kiger, an easy-going guy, not excitable. He was slow moving, but every movement counted. He had a white mustache and would whistle through it. I was five or six years old. The water wagon would pull up, and a hose from the injector would be placed in the water wagon. Water was used directly from the water wagon until the water hauler decided it was time to go get more. He would take a hose from the nozzle at the bottom of the water tank in back and insert the hose in a small livestock tank beside the engine. He would fill that livestock tank then take off for more water. The hose from the injector (with a brass screen) would be placed in the small livestock tank. Joe Williams also used a small livestock tank with his Reeves outfit. No one got excited about the Huber water tank when it began to smoke—except me [because I was] afraid of fire. Probably, Jake … started some kind of ejector to fill that tank so it would not get too hot.”

Joe Rhode Beside Joe Williams' Reeves Engine Being Run by Charley Cobb

While we were seated at the kitchen table, my father gave me instructions to sketch maps of threshing rings and sawmill engines around our hometown.

Joe Rhode Near Reeves Engine Threshing on Joe Williams' Farm

On my father’s birthday in 1996, Dad discussed the so-called “bucket run,” which began at the Builta farm, “went west to Edgar Akers, out the angling road, up Lovers’ Lane [for the] first two houses on that road, back west to the next road to Perry Short’s farm, back down west to the place just west of my grandfather’s, then back to [State Route] 26 to where Jim Dill lived (Burgoyne Davis owned the farm), on to where Sherman Carter lived, to Andrew and Martha Rhode, to the next house—Doc Fenton’s (rented by Earl Simmons)—on west to Dave Hale’s on the north side of the road, to ‘Toss’ (a pronounced abbreviation ‘Thos.’ for Thomas) Young, then back to the creek road to do little jobs for small farms owned by Burl McDonald, Ed Shoults, Fred Dowling, Ed Bowman, Orval Maxson’s place, Bill Cox, then  up the road to the north to Bill Milligan. Men carried dinner in a dinner bucket instead of the women having to cook a big threshing dinner. They used basket racks on the bundle wagons. This run hired Jack Strickler to thresh for many years but hired others, [such as] Jake St. John. Joe Williams did it two years in succession while someone filled in where he [usually] threshed.”

My Chart of Threshing in the Vicinity of Pine Village, Indiana 1

My father explained, “Bucket-run workers had two feed boxes on the two back corners of their basket wagons and did not take their horses inside people’s barns along the run but fed the horses from the wagons. The sills extended back farther than normal to hold the feed boxes.” As my father fondly recalled the lavish threshing dinners that other rings offered, he said, “It must’ve been the least pleasurable to work on the bucket run of any run with which I was acquainted.”

My Chart of Threshing in the Vicinity of Pine Village, Indiana 2

My Chart of Threshing in the Vicinity of Pine Village, Indiana 3

My Chart of Threshing in the Vicinity of Pine Village, Indiana 4

My Chart of Threshing in the Vicinity of Pine Village, Indiana 5

My Diagram of Threshing in the Vicinity of Pine Village, Indiana 1

My Diagram of Threshing in the Vicinity of Pine Village, Indiana 2