BlairAndCernyFamilie..

orc of our greatest pleasures was at christmas time n*ren the
ticket €entr Andy Zold at the e\press office in Illiopolis
nrld call and say there was a package to be picked up. The
big package was always from the Cerny family, our aunts and
r.rncles *rd the package contained gifts for all of us. Every
hristmas eve each of us children r+ould write our name on a slip
of p4er and place it on, the round oak table in the dining room
ad the next nbrning we nould arise very early and find Santa Claus
had been there and had left gifts for each of us as well as orangesl
hard candy and english walnuts.
After rwiering our gifts for a rt'ttilee our rpther r.rould stuff the
turkey and put it in the coal range stove oven and we all got
dressed to go to church. Ue always went to 5 orclock lJass in the
;prning at Illiopolis even though many times it was zero weather.
After l{ass we could hardly wait to get home to the warm kitchen and
the aroma of the turkey baking in the oven was marvelous.
There was no electricity on the farm at this time. However, we did have
an aladdin larp that hung frorn the ceiling over the dining room table
and several kerosene lenps that had glass chimneys and they had to be
rashed every day. Life on the farm was much different then than it is
todaye farmsteads were usually far apart and only dirt roads. The
roads were fine in the sunmer time unless we had a big rain and that
really settled the dust. During the spring and fall seasons there
rere only buggy and wagon tracks across the prafrie, tracks that were
hub-deep rith ruts and black mrd. The roads were often blocked with
snordrifts in the winter time and often irpassable. Hany times the
only means of travel was on foot, horseback or with wagons. In the
rinter the trips to town were feur and far between. There was a srnoke
trcuse at home and the hams and bacon were cured and srpked there.
As children we looked forward to threshing time of the wheat and oats.
Olr father was with a corrnrnity organization of farmers who all joined
together and helped one another thresh their grain field. One or maybe
rcre than one farmer owned the rig which had a grain separator and an
imrense steam engine. The engine burned either coal or r+ood and when
nter was purped into its large reservoir, it formed a powerful stean
than ran the engine and turned the big belt setting the threshing
rJteels in rption.
fur mther began planning several days ahead of time for the big meal
that had to be prepared to feed all of the men. She rlould purchase
trc beef roasts weighing approximately twelve to fourteen pounds each
fron the Febus meat market in Illiopolis. The butcher always gave two
or three pounds of hot dogs free when you purchased the beef roasts.