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a little less than ten thousand I hoofing it across the snowy{n rvnnx 11 t l Col? 1 tt *1 Kl »rfn /i/ilrl f Ji * O f oin population, sets in a hugebowl with peaklike hills jutting up around it. This bowl could be called the “Minnesota Valley Bowl.’1 The Minnesota river cuts down in through that valley which is alive with history of Indian massacres, shades of the old covered wagon, and pioneers that knew what it was like to defend an old stockade.Later, entering Mankato on Highway 14, you feel like you are doing a bit of tobogganing as you start rounding bends that look down over the Minnesota river as it wends its way In and around that thriving town. Far down below the curving road you see dozens of fish huts scattered along the river ice. It’s quite a different picturefrom ice-fishing on the biglakes; here the huts are down in sort of a river canyon somewhat protected from the high blasting winds.Mankato and its surroundingresidence, district is a picture of hills, snow, creeks, gullies,evergreens, church steeples and homes with the Minnesota and the La Sueur rivers both lending charm to its attractiveness.Between Mankato and St. Clair, on that winding road that once was an Indian trail,I ran into a snarly blizzard that made me feel I’d suddenly been lifted from the sunny south and was making a forced landing inthe Klondike.The following day schools were closed, farm lanes were blocked, and the ice-coated streets of St. Clair, with fresh snow on top, were teacherous.For an example of the picture in reverse: Thursday morning in order to get an interview at the Grace Schroeder farm, it was necessary for them to get a large bulldozer to open up their long farm lane before we could even attempt to enter their farmyard. With snow piled high on both sides, Jack Fitzloff of St. Clair and 1 drove up to the farm house and stepped into a warm kitchen where a sizzling tea kettle was playing a tune on a kitchen range. Getting an interview was easy because the chores were clone and there was nothing much that could be done otherwise.Mrs. Schroeder and her son, William, and John Vanora, the hired man, run the farm, and they had a story of 113.68 bushels of corn to the acre in that northern dairylancl. This was a Blue Earth county winner in a corn growing contest, and when I asked John Vanora if he was surprised about the yield he said, “No, not exactly, I've seen so much good corn up in here these late years I’m getting used to it.”Wherever you visited thereyou forgot about the snow and ice as you entered some home, or a large dairy barn where some 30 Holsteins stood contentedly munching their grainmd hay.The Schroeder interview wasthe last of a number of farms r’d visited so with that completed I said to Jack Fitzloff, Tm heading for Yankton before the highways get plugged like thesefarm lanes.”From a temperature of 11 below in St. Clair that morning ind driving through six foot lanes of snow, I wound up m Yankton that evening with alack plowed ground showing n the fields and temperatures25 above.Snowblock ProblemsWith only a few of the main He rmen UP there around St.field to his farm home.When I got my station wagon out of the St. Clair garage one morning the proprietor said, “A farmer just called in for me to bring some fuel oil to a point on the road near his farm. He said to bring plenty of barrels and he’d be there to meet me with a tractor and sled.My original intention was to visit Burt “Swede” Johnson and his brother, Paul, down in Hungry Hollow. “They’re busy cutting wood down there,” informed Jack Fitzloff, “and with this new skirmish of snow they’ll be blocked in. You won’t get in and they won’t get out.” George B. German. WNAX Inquiring ReporterTraining SchoolA training School for 4-H leaders and committee members will be held in the Farm Bureau Meeting room at Orange City, Iowa from 10:00 until approximately 4:00 p.m.-Miss Em-elda Kunau, Extension Specialist in Home Furnishings, will present the material for this Training School.As the title suggests, the little things such as pictures, pillows, lamps and other small accessories will be the materials for discussion for the day.Farm Bureau Women’s Study Groups Training SchoolA Training School will be held in the Farm Bureau Room for all Township Chairmen of the Organized Women’ Groups in Sioux County. Mrs. William Garniobst, District Farm Bureau Committeewoman, will conduct this meeting with the assistance of Miss Dee Maier, Extension Home Economics Supervisor. ^ All the various township chairmen will have an opportunity to have their material for study discussed and a couny-wide plan of action formulated.
Newspaper Details
Alton Democrat
Alton, Iowa, US
Thu, Feb 08, 1951
Page 1
Full Page
Clipped by
Nancy N.
USA 22 Aug 2018
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