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I will try and say a few things about the early days. I was born in Scotland, South Dakota, September 8, 1898. My folks were Fredrich and Maria Stutz. Shortly after I was born my folks picked up what little they had and set out for Colorado in a covered wagon. It took three weeks to make the trip. They homesteaded eight miles north of Bethune, Colorado. We were at the south end of "the settlement;" from there to the Rock Island Railroad it was all open range. There were lots of cattle and horses that were owned by a few ranchers. My folks made their home on this open prairie. There were only a few antelope around, no buildings, houses or barns. I remember the first sod house we lived in. It had a dirt floor, but it was home. There was a dug well in the Landsman River two miles east of our place; that is where my folks hauled their water from with barrels. There was no wood in that country so the only fuel was cow chips. I remember we had to go out and pick them up by the wagon loads and haul them home for the winter fuel supply. To go to Burlington or Stratton was, "as the crow flies" about 14 miles either way, no square corners. After dark or in a snow storm it was very easy to get lost. As I grew up I remember walking the wooden sidewalks in Burlington. Also, you couldn't just go to the store and buy a bottle of milk or a loaf or bread. In about 1906 my folks built an adobe house with a shingle roof and wooden floor. Going to school was not in heated cars, it was all on foot. Most kids had to walk two miles or more. The teachers did their own janitorial work and they were paid $35.00 a month for everything. In about 1908 or 1910 a lot of homesteaders settled in this country; they lived in frame shacks and hillside dug outs. I went to school with a lot of their children as long as they could stay. They didn't have enough clothes or shoes and some of them nearly froze to death but they still walked to school. There was no government help, no food stamps, you were on your own. A lot of the people had to leave or else they would starve, but a few stayed. Like I said we walked two miles to school but later on we got a school only one mile from home. I got my daily jogging in from home to school, I got to the point where I could run the full mile to school. My good wife and myself both graduated from adobe schools. We did our milking in the corral, there was no fancy milk barn. The cream had to be skimmed by hand and churned to butter. Some of the butter was molded in one pound cubes and sold at the grocery store. I remember my folks had a wooden churn in a frame with a crank on it. Later the cream stations started up. That helped, because then we could sell the cream. As I grew up things changed a lot. We made our living by selling cream and eggs. We had our dry years when we were not able to raise any feed. In 1911 and 1912 we had a lot of snow and everyone had to use sleds. I remember my dad went to Burlington several times for feed. He would come back with maybe one sack of corn and three bails of hay. Later on our family got a buggy and that made things a little easier. Then in 1913 and 1914 a few autos and steamers showed up and I got to ride in some of them. When the Model T came along my family got their first one in 1915. From 1916 crops got better and things went along pretty good, but the slump started in 1929. If you think times are bad now stop and think what our folks went through. I left the farm in 1919 and worked for the Bethune Lumber Company. I got into the grocery business for a few years after that. When I left the grocery business I became manager of the Bethune Lumber Company for several years. We had a good baseball team in Bethune. I was the second mayor of Bethune and member of the school board. We got the town water works in and a few sidewalks built. I was also on District 24's school board while I was on the farm until the time we left. After I left the Bethune Lumber Company, I started buying hogs in Bethune. There were lots of hogs in the country at that time. I bought from one to three carloads a week. Most of them were hauled in wagons and I shipped them to Pueblo and Denver. All the shipping was done by rail at that time. I bought two car loads that were driven in on foot. One load came from 1 1/2 miles northwest of town from Mr. Negus and one load from Mr. Ardueser 1 1/2 miles south of town. I played the saxophone with the Burlington band. In 1927 I married Alvina Schlichenmayer and in 1929 we moved back to the farm and everything was pretty steady. Prices on grain and livestock started up. By 1930, however, everything went lower. The prices of cattle and hogs started coming down. This was the time of the dirty thirties, the wind blew and there was no rain. 1932 and 1933 were worse and the dust bowl came in 1934. The wind was so hot and dry that even the leaves blew off of the corn stalks. The weeds wouldn't even sprout. In 1933 1 sent some hogs to Denver. Good hogs brought $2.25 per hundred. In 1934 I sold my cattle to the government for $12.50 per head. In 1935 there was no feed and the grass had all blown away so we had an auction and sold what was left on the farm. We went to Elizabeth, Colorado in 1935 and to Denver, Colorado in 1937, then the war started. We made our home in Denver but things were not good in the city either. If you could get a job they usually paid about 30 cents per hour. Thanks to the good Lord for providing us with food and clothes and our menu which was beans and bacon rind. I worked on government buildings doing heavy construction like building hangers. Later on I went back into the livestock business
which I enjoyed. I had a brokers license which meant I could buy
and sell anything in livestock. I handled thousands of head of cattle,
hogs, sheep, horses and even a few goats. I stayed with that until
the Denver Stockyards closed. I went to LaJunta, Pueblo and Salida
every week and a lot of times to Stratton.
We have been retired for several years now. We now make our home in Denver, Colorado. |