William Utesch Family

UTESCH CLEAO

Posted By: Connie Swearingen (email)
Date: 10/15/2010 at 23:27:03

History of Woodbury County, Iowa 1984

William Utesch Family
By Mrs Marjorie E Hoppe

William Rudolph Utesch was born May 3, 1889, to Rudolph H Utesch, August 2, 1848-1924, and Louise Assenschmidt, 1885-1900. William was only 11 years old when his mother passed away. He had older sisters, Emma and Annie, younger sisters, Clara and Bertha, and brothers Emil and Harry.

William married Mary Cleao. Her parents were Isaac James Parks, December 8, 1849-1904, and Mary Catherine Ortman, September 3, 1851-1921. To this union fourteen children were born. Mary Cleao being the third to the last child. She was born January 12, 1892.

At the time of their marriage, Cleao was working at a bakery in Correctionville. She helped support her aging mother and two younger sisters. Cleao and ‘Bill’ rode the train to Sioux City on February 4, 1914, were married, and returned to Correctionville again on the train.

They made their home on a farm at Midway. Clara Faye was born January 29, 1915. When Faye was a year old they moved to a family farm is just south of the Good Hope Cemetery. The following children were born and raised on this farm: Violet Lucille, December 11, 1916; Marjorie Ellen, April 2, 1921; Alice Louise, October 29, 1924; William Rudolph, Jr, February 2, 1928; Phyllis Marie, May 25, 1931; and Wanda Joyce, March 15, 1934.

This was a happy home. Work was done by horses, then in later years by tractors. Dad fed a lot of cattle and Mom milked the cows by hand. A large garden was a necessity. I remember the cave being full in the autumn. The potatoes would fill one-fourth of the large cave and such items as two hundred quarts of canned strawberried sauce filled the shelves. To hundred quart jars of applesauce lined the shelf-this was made from tiny Whitney apples. The apples were small and a little ‘blah’ in taste, so Mother would use raspberries, pineapple, and cherries to change the taste a little.

Once a week was baking day. Seven to twelve loaves were made, a cake now and then, and a few pies.

The winter brought butchering. Uncle Harry and Aunt Alice would come out to help and they would get some meat in return for work. I remember butchering one steer and four hogs. The steer would be shot, then a knife would cut the jugular vein so the meat would bleed. A single tree was used to fasten the hind feet to and a pulley was used to pull the steer up so it could be skinned and gutted. The meat was left to cool in the cold night and the next day was filled with cutting up and preserving the meat. I recall many jars filled with meat cooking in the oven. The oven of course was fueled by wood and cobs. Most of the port {pork} was salted and smoked.

Next summer it was really a treat to go to that big cave and bring out a jar of this tender roasted beef to warm up for dinner.

Chickens were raised and killed during the summer.

I remember one day Aunt Clara and Aunt Bertha’s families came to visit. The cousins my age of course played outside. It was fun to go in the chicken coop to see what would happen. As soon as the door was open chickens would fly everywhere. So we three decided to hold the little small door for chickens, so the chickens couldn’t get out. We had more fun catching chickens. Before long we began to itch. I {It} wasn’t long before we discovered we were covered with lice. We went to the horse tank to wash them off. Boy did the Aunts and Mom get mad!

The family farm had a lot of timber land good for dairy cattle and feeder cattle. This land had to have a long lane to reach it. One of the highlights, especially when cousins would come to visit, was to go back to the timber because there were wash outs which made caves under the tree roots. On the way home things got a little boring-and of course we went barefoot all summer long. The excitement of the day was to find a perfect excitement of the day was to find a perfect ‘cow pie’ (droppings) so that our feet would fit inside and dry enough to wear them as shoes. We have in later years laughed about these antics.

I’ll never forget the time Mother’s older sister and husband came to out house. Aunt Olive and Uncle Ambrose were rich (he was a mail carrier at Remsen). Anyway, they always brought fruit or candy to us. As a group of kids we had a barn quite close to the road the hens would steal nests out. We couldn’t sell old eggs, so if you found one you would break all the eggs. We found one so why not throw them at the passing cars. Guess who we threw the rotten eggs at? Yes, Uncle Ambrose and Aunt Olive!