Preservings 11 (1997) - Plett Foundation

itious woman”, and this was very true in
this family. Grandfather Peters with his leadership
qualities, and with the help of his aggressive
wife, the farm progressed well.
The fields yielded lots of grain, and by
fall, the farmers felt a sense of accomplishment
to see rows of stacked hay and sweet
clover enough to feed the cattle for winter.
Late in fall this feed was cut to silage with
a silage cutter. There were only a few threshing
machines in this area, so all the cereal
grain sheaves had to be stacked in large
stacks, and the farmers had to wait his turn
for the threshing machine to thresh the grain.
Sometimes this was close to Christmas time.
My grandfather bought his own threshing
outfit, threshing machine and Titan tractor
and started custom work.
The household and garden.
The garden yielded enough to fill the root
cellar with potatoes, carrots, turnips, onions
and more. There was a large supply of pickled
watermelons, stone crocks of sauerkraut,
fermented cucumbers, etc. The pantry was
the storage place for pails of ripe beans,
crocks of homemade jam made from wild
fruit picked from the bush, and jars of beets,
watermelon and carrot syrup. All these syrups
were used for dunking buns in, and for
baking, one way of cutting the cost of buying
sugar.
There were pails of roasted barley, which
when ground up, was brewed to a coffee like
beverage, called “prips”. Then there were
boxes of homemade potato starch, used to
starch clothes. Yeast in those days was
started from the fruit of a hop plant. After
some special recipe was used the yeast was
started. By adding various ingredients to the
left-over yeast, there was enough to last all
year. There was the art of making good lyesoap,
which was used for laundry—the
whiter the soap the better. This soap was
always plentiful in this household. The
luxury of face and hand soap, called “Castel
soap” is not available anymore.
In the garden, Grandpa Peters built a
bake oven of bricks and mortar. This oven
was heated up with wood to a certain temperature
and in summer Grandmother baked
bread in this oven.
Late in fall, when the temperature dropped
to freezing, there were hog butchering bees,
neighbours and friends, worked together,
helping each other out in this work. For winter
there was a lot of fresh pork, smoked sausages,
crackles and lots of lard for baking.
Lots of prestige went to the household that
had the most lard from one hog. The hams
were saved for summer. During the winter
this meat was cured in salt and then in early
spring, this meat was thoroughly smoked in
a smoke house. This preserved meat kept well
even in the heat of summer. In summer there
was always a supply of fresh chicken and
other fowl. Even if there were no freezers
people had good nourishing food.
No. 11, December, 1997
The Jakob B. Peters farmyard NW5-7-6E. The farm originally belonged to Johann Klassen and Maria Stoesz.
In the background, to the upper left, can be seen the buildings of the Ebenfeld cheese factory (1936-1955),
approximately where the Steinbach lagoon is situated today. Photo courtesy of Elma Peters Plett.
Hospitality.
Hospitality was another exceptional good
trait of Jacob and Anna Peters. My greatgrandparents
Heinrich and Helena Harder
lived in a little house in my grandparents
garden in their retirement years. Greatgrandmother
Harder was cared for in her
own house until she passed away in 1925.
Then Great-grandfather Harder moved in
with grandparents, Peters, and was taken
care of by them.
Special mention goes to my Aunt Marie
Peters. To describe her simply, she was a
second Florence Nightingale. She had a
wonderful talent of caring for aged people.
Great-grandfather Harder passed away in
1934. Mary and the other children found loving
care at Grandparents home.
During these years Grandfather Peters
farmed together with son Peter. The other
sons were on farms of their own. When
Grandfather Peters reached retirement age,
he sold his homestead if 160 acres to his
son Peter. This transaction was only on paper.
From then on my grandparents and Aunt
Marie lived with Uncle Peter. Nothing else
in the household changed. The land that
grandfather Peters owned in the Clearspring
area, known as the Stoesz farm, was sold to
daughter Anna and her husband Cornelius
Unger. My father bought the land grandfather
owned in the Reichenbach area, called
Britte Schteppe on Section 36.
Christmas.
Christmas at Grandparents house was always
very special. After a delicious noon
71
meal, the uncles and aunts visited in the
“Groti Schtoave” or living room. We cousins
were allowed to play in one room upstairs.
Here we could listen to some records,
played on an antique gramophone. We had
lots of fun playing.
We, girl cousins, I must admit, did sneak
into Aunt Marie’s bedroom to peek into this
neat room. This visit was only about as long
as you could hold your breath, fearing we
would be found out. Just before “faspa”, we
grandchildren were called downstairs and
one by one we had to come into the “groti
Schtoave” and say our “Wensch”, a Christmas
recital.
This was a major event of the day, but
the reward was that Grandmother gave us a
blank scribbler “Mole Buck” and a pencil.
We got money from Great-Grandfather. The
uncles were also generous and gave us
money. If we would tell Uncle Jacob our
name, he would decide if it was a nice name,
and he would give us money. Without fail,
we always had a nice name and we got
money.
One particular Christmas Great-Grandfather
Harder was carving something with
his pocket knife. We cousins sat close by
and watched what the outcome of this would
be. It was a spinning top made from a
wooden spool. He must have made quite a
few, a number of us cousins got one. I had a
special cousin, and when he watched how
much longer my top turned, he asked me to
trade. I gave my top to Henry. As a reward
my father made one for me that was even
better.