Page 60
To Grandmother's House
Most of the visits to my maternal Grandmother's house, watching her do some of her daily tasks and listening to accounts of some of the events she experienced, were interesting and enjoyable.
She was Anna M., a daughter of Wm. Richmann. She married Fred H. Dircks and lived at what is now 105 Hall Avenue and is owned and occupied by the Edgar C. Hintz family.
Grandmother's father, William Richmann, (in Germany he was Wilhelm Reichmann), came from Ilserheide, Germany to New Orleans in 1847 and then came by boat up the Mississippi and settled in Illinois near Red Bud, across the river from St. Louis. Here Mr. Richmann married Christine S. Penningroth, who was the daughter of Mrs Friedrick Penningroth who with seven children also came from Ilserheide, Germany. Mr. Richmann farmed in that area a few years and then in 1857, he and his family which now included three children, moved to Cedar County, Iowa and settled on a farm southeast of Lowden. The major part of this farm was the E ½ of the SW ¼ of Section 12 in Springfield Township.
Mr Richmann had a brick oven in which the bread was baked for the families in the neighborhood, as had been the practice in Germany.
Mr Richmann left the farm and went into a store which is now Licht's Dept. Store at 510 Main; he sold his interest in the store and went back to the farm. Then he again left the farm and purchased an interest in the store.
The Richmanns, when in town, lived in a house which is now 105 Jefferson and is owned and occupied by the Stan Sander family. Grandmother told about while living here, when about ten years of age in the year 1871, how she and a neighbor girl, Maggie Todd, were making mud pies. It so happened that at this time, President Grant, in his private train was passing through Lowden. The train stopped and the President greeted the Lowden folks. The town band and a large gathering were at the station to welcome him. Grandmother and her playmate joined the group, and in spite of their mud soiled hands, they too, shook hands with President Grant.
Grandmother Spun Lots Of Yarn
Grandmother had two spinning wheels, one that had been her mother's and one that had belonged to her mother-in-law. She had access to both black and white wool, for spinning black and white yarn, from her son Carl and later Emil who had farmed the Fred Dircks farm which is now owned by Hugo Rowald. The farm buildings to this farm are located in the NE ¼ of the NE ¼ of Section 10 in Springfield Township. She obtained the brown coloring from walnut hulls and if any other color was desired, she had to purchase the dye.
After the wool was washed it was carded by using two rectangular paddles that contained wire teeth slanting back toward the handle. With a carder in each hand and pulling away from each other, the wool between the carders . . .
Page 61
. . . was made fluffy, and if any foreign particles had survived the washing, they could be easily removed from the carded wool.
When Grandmother spun, she did not place the carded wool on a distaff as is sometimes explained in the process of spinning, but she fed the spindle with wool that she held in her lap. To help make it easier to see the wool while spinning, she wore a black apron when spinning white wool and a white apron when spinning black wool.
When spinning wool into yarn, the spinning wheel was turned in a clockwise direction which caused the spindle to twist the wool into a thread. Attached to the spindle and turning with it as one unit, was a U-shaped apparatus called a flier. The flier contained a series of hooks for successively placing the newly spun thread so that it would be evenly wound over the whole length of the spool. The spool fit loosely over the spindle shaft and was equipped with a smaller pulley than the one on the shaft of the spindle and flier. These two different size pulleys were connected by a string belt to the drive wheel. This caused the spool to run faster than the spindle and flier which in turn caused the wool to be drawn into the spindle and the twisted thread to be wound onto the spool.
After three spools were filled with spun thread, they were each placed on a shaft and mounted one above the other on a small rack. The thread from each of the three spools were simultaneous fed into the spindle that was now turned in a counter-clockwise direction. This was done so that as the three threads were twisted together, the clockwise twist of each of the three threads of the first operation were partially untwisted. This produced a soft fluffy yarn. Since Grandmother had two spinning wheels, she used the second wheel for this operation. By using the two different spinning wheels, it was easier for her to switch from one operation to the other.
The full spools of yarn were then wound onto a reel that was about three feet in diameter. The four spokes of the reel were made of wood and formed the shape of a cross. A smaller flat piece of wood about eight inches long, was nailed through the center perpendicular to each of the spoke ends. It was these four pieces of wood that actually held the yarn as it was wound on the reel. A peg that stuck out from one of the spokes was used as a crank for turning the reel. As the yarn was wound on the reel, the reel was stopped at different times, so that a string could be tied around the strands of yarn to help keep them from becoming entangled. When the desired number of turns were wound on the reel, the circular mass of yarn called a skein was slid off the reel. The skein of yarn was then twisted in a way so that it would fold over on itself which was made a more compact bundle.
Before the yarn could be used for knitting, it had to be wound into a ball. This was accomplished by opening up the skein and placing it over two chairs, back to back, and pulling them apart to where the strains of yarn became taut. As children we walked around and around the chairs as we unwrapped the yarn from the skein onto the ball. An adult could stand to one side of the chairs and lift the strands of yarn up and off the back of the chairs, as they were wrapped onto the ball.
During her latter years, Grandmother ordered a new spinning wheel from Germany. This one was different than the first two in that it had two spindle-flier-spool assemblies. These were located above the power wheel instead of on the side of the wheel, as were her other two. This type of spinning wheel . . .
Page 62
. . . was often referred to as a “gossip wheel”, since two people could feed wool into the wheel and visit at the same time. If two people did spin at the same time at the one wheel, the efforts of the second person were required to be fairly well synchronized to those of the other person who was operating the treadle.
Grandmother knitted caps, stockings, sweaters, mittens, and scarfs to wrap around our neck, face, and head to help keep out the winter cold. She also knit the upper part of house slippers. The soles were made from layers of tough hard cloth and sewed to the uppers.
I should explain the reason for referring to Grandmother and not to Grandfather. Unless the visits to their house were in the evening or on Sunday, Grandfather was never seen. He helped with the work on the Dircks farm. He walked out to the farm in the morning and walked back at night.
The companionship of grandparents is very rewarding. One wonders about children and what they are missing, who have no grandparents and even worse, about those who have no parents.
Arthur J. Fisher
* ~ * ~ *
I REMEMBER WHEN -
. . . . . my grandmother told me about the cold December of 1882 when her son, Charles Conrad was born. The Indians did come to the door, also into the home looking for supplies. The Indian mother insisted on having the blanket covering my grandmother. They were finally dissuaded with an apronful of apples, a chicken and a sackful of fresh zweiback that the trained dog had managed to carry over to his Indian master. (My grandparents were living by the dense “Geiger” timber on the farm five southwest of Lowden which is occupied by the Darrell Yutesler family.
Mrs Ernest (Selma Henrichs) Von Roden