ETHEL HALVERSON PATTERSON

Highlights of Ethel's life which she referred to as "basic to my recipes for living":  I was born on March 18, 1920 in Fayette County, Iowa, near the little town of Alpha.  I attended schools at Alpha, Hawkeye and West Union.

My parents, Elmer and Maude Halverson were farmers.  My mother was a school teacher, having received a teaching certificate from Cedar Falls Teachers College.  My parents raised a family during the worst of times- the 1920s and '30s.  This was called the Depression. My father lost his farm the same year that my little sister died at age three of rheumatic heart disease. Many times, in fact all the time, different members of the family took turns rocking her or pushing the baby carriage.  We did anything to keep her from crying because, if we let her cry, she would turn blue, which caused a rush to get her some air and smelling salts.

My parents were very active in the little Alpha Methodist Church.  My father was Sunday School superintendent, and my mother taught  Sunday School. Many times my brothers, sisters and I were  loaded  into the sleigh or cutter  during the cold winter  Sundays and covered  over with blankets  and something I remember  as being like a bear skin rug.

After my parents lost the farm, we moved to different rental farms, which always meant changing schools.   Ten years after my little sister died, my parents and our family were subjected to another death as my 21-year-old brother and his best friend were killed in an automobile accident.   This was something my parents never did get over.  My brother was the pride of the family and much loved by the whole community.

Soon the war broke out; he enlisted in the Navy Construction Battalions. He went overseas soon after, and I tried to continue my nurse's training, which wasn’t easy. It was hard to concentrate on studies with the war going on and him being overseas.  As a result, after my first year of training, I transferred back to Upper Iowa where I got my Bachelors Degree in science and got a job teaching science at Anamosa High School  I taught  freshmen  and sophomores for a few months until Pat came home from overseas.

We were married on October 9, 1944, at West Union in the Methodist Church.   A few months later he was assigned to Port Hueneme Naval Base and I resigned my job at Anamosa to go to California to live with him. On September 4, 1945 our oldest son, Randy was born in the Navy Hospital.  Not long after that, the war with Japan was over and we were able to return to Iowa.

Pat taught at Ridgeway, Iowa for a semester and then was contacted to apply at Osceola high school, which he did, and we moved to Osceola in July, 1946. He coached football, basketball and baseball along with taking care of the duties of Athletic Director. In July of 1948 we bought the Four Corner Food Market on Main Street, where the Standard Oil Station is now located. In 1950 we built a new grocery store east of the intersection of highways 34 and 69. This was also the year our second child, Kristy, was born and we bought Emma Allen's house on Park Street, which we still own and have as a rental property.

I was born July 9, 1920 at Clinton, Missouri. My parents, Eldred and Eva Patterson, were farmers and had previously traded their farm in Fayette County, in northern Iowa, for a farm in the Clinton, Missouri area.  In these early days, farmers would often trade farms rather than have a lawyer prepare a land sales contract as is the practice today.

When I was old enough to understand, my folks related to me that they soon found out that their new tillable soil had what was called "hard pan" below the top soil.  The land looked great but the rains would not penetrate into the hard subsoil.  Probably, with today's high horse power tractors and sub-soilers, the land could have been made productive. By October, 1920 theyhad become discouraged with life in Missouri and moved to Sterling, in northeast Colorado, where my father's sister and other relatives lived.  This was dry land wheat country.  Farmers would, and still do, let the land lie fallow one year and plant wheat the next.  Land in the early years were very cheap as compared to 1997 prices.

The first two years my folks enjoyed good wheat crops.  The next few years turned into what was known as "dust bowl" times. As the future looked bleak in this wheat country and our existence was questionable, we moved to Fowler, Colorado to a nice, half-irrigated and half-dry land farm.

My grandfather died in 1925, the first year we were there; and my parents continued to operate his land.  The land we could not irrigate was natural "buffalo grass" and was pasture for the cows.  On the land under irrigation, we raised some wheat, corn, pinto beans, sugar beets and watermelons for seed.  The wheat and corn were fed to our hogs and chickens.  Mother always took care of the chicken flock.  The eggs served as food as well as cash to buy some of our groceries.  We usually had about ten cows to milk, which furnished the family butter and some cream to sell.

We received our irrigation water from the Arkansas River.  Each farm owned so many water shares, according to the size of the farm.  We were only allowed water for the land about every 12 days and then for only about 48 hours.  The head gate was padlocked and controlled by the water association, who in turn hired a man on horse-back to lock and unlock our allocation. My father would have to irrigate all night, using a lantern for light. It was very hard work.

Another back-breaking job was raising sugar beets. In the late '20's this required manual labor - without the benefit of tractors with front end loaders, electric motors, or hydraulics as we have today. The beets were planted rather thick in rows about 18" wide. When they were about 3" they would have to be thinned so that the plants were about 10" apart. This, too, was a veryhard and hot job. There was a Mexican settlement of several hundred people that lived in our small town of Fowler. The families were hired to thin, hoe, and cut the leaves off the plants after they were lifted from the soil by means of a horse-drawn beet puller. After topping they were put in large piles. The fanner then had to load the beets by hand and they were taken by rail car on to the refinery.

There were four children in our family. My older brother, Roy, had graduated from high school in 1930.  He helped with the farm and then went back to Fayette County in northeast Iowa, where some of our relatives lived.  I recall that he had a job with the telephone company, digging the holes for poles by hand.  They had to be over 6' deep.  Roy enlisted in the Marine Corps early in World War II and attained the rank of captain.  He was later married to the movie star, Paula Raymond.  Both are now deceased.

I have an older sister Hazel, 80 years of age, and a widow, who lives in Denver, Colorado. She and I often recall when we were kids and she hit me in the forehead with a garden hoe.  I still have the scar.  I have since forgiven her.

A younger brother, Lloyd, and I had many good times together.  We made our own weapons of destruction- "sling shots", "bow and arrow missiles", "beanies that propelled rocks", etc. Lloyd was in Law Enforcement (Iowa Highway Patrol) until he retired.  He, too, is now deceased.

In the late '20's, the big depression was starting to affect all families.  As it continued into the early '30's, banks were closing their doors and people lost their money. Farmers lost their farms because there was no demand for their crops or livestock. Money was very scarce.  Loans could not be paid.

I remember the President Herbert Hoover years, the election of President Franklin Roosevelt and the "New Deal" which was to salvage our economy. Our neighbor had a radio that was powered by what was called a "B" battery. He invited our family to listen to the election returns. We were too poor to subscribe to a daily newspaper for Colorado and world news.

However, my father did find enough money to buy malt and the other ingredients to make home brew (beer).  I will always remember the process from mixing the recipe to the bottling. As I recall, the fermentation process took about two weeks.  The container was a large crock with a lid. This was placed in an attic room, which was always warm.  When the brew was ready, it was my mother's and grandmother's job to do the bottling. The bottles were sterilized and the caps squeezed on with a hand lever that sealed the beer. To get the beer into the bottles, they used a small rubber hose and, by mouth, Grandmother would start the beer flowing into each bottle.  My mother would run the capping machine. There was a little humor to the story. At the end of the bottling, Grandmother was always a little "tipsy." She was a great person and we often laughed at her performance.

My parents loved to dance.  Dance halls were common in Colorado.  The folks usually went to a dance several times a month. Square dancing with a "caller" was very popular. Mother and father were very graceful waltzing, which was their favorite style of dancing.  There were many barn dances which would be unique in this day and age.  Music was often times furnished by a small band.  I recall a special friend of ours who played the accordion for dances.  The folks also had a Brunswick Record Player that played the old 78 RPMs and had to be wound by hand.  This was a source of enjoyment for all the family.

A downside to the dances was that my father invariably would come home in a drunken state.  He always got very sick and I recall him invariably telling my mother, "Never again;" but his promises usually lasted only until the next time.  Father and my older brother would probably be considered as semi-alcoholics. It was a blessing for me as I saw what liquor had done to them. I made up my mind that this would never be part of my life and I am proud of my conviction.

Another incident happened to me when I was about 12 years of age.  My older brother smoked cigarettes, cigars, chewed plug tobacco- the whole works. I recall one afternoon when I was to cultivate corn with horses and cultivator. I asked my brother for a Camel cigarette to smoke while I was working. He said to take the entire package and enjoy.  I accepted his generosity and headed for the cornfield.  I smoked one, two, three and then my vision seemed to see strange things.  I'm sure the corn plants were fewer in numbers. I lost my dinner, not once but several times. I didn't know how I could feel so bad and still be alive. This was a favor my brother did for me.  I promised myself to never again take a puff from a cigarette or use any other form of tobacco.  We form habits early in life and these experiences have been part of my recipe for living.

Another character builder for me was my experience with the Boy Scouts of America. A neighbor boy my age belonged to the Fowler Boy Scout Troop. One evening he invited me to attend a meeting with him. I wanted to join and my parents gave their approval. I remember the challenges that went with earning a merit badge and my road to becoming a Star Scout.

The summer of 1932 our scout master and troop went on a week's trip to an area of the Rocky Mountains of southern Colorado. Our camp was located in the pine trees at the base of the Great Colorado White Sand Dunes.  The huge mountains of pure white sand looked like one of the "Wonders of the World."  It was fun to sleep in tents, cook our own food, do things that qualified us for another merit badge and eventually moved us up to another scout rank.

My early schooling that I recall best started in the 4th grade when I was nine years old. Our country school was in a nice brick building. It seemed very big at that time. Grades one through four were in the south side, library in the center, and grades five through eight were on the north side.  We rode a bus to and from school.  There were two lady teachers.  As a compliment to my 5th through 8th grade teacher, I consider that she was one of the best. She had discipline, taught us good work ethics, and in general was always in control of her students' progress.

Our building was heated by a large forced air furnace.  She would pay me 50-cents a week to shovel coal to the furnace several times a day. That was a lot of money to a kid during the Depression. For something to do at recess, the boys would play marbles, baseball basketball or dodge ball. As the patches of our overalls wore through, Mother would redo them.   We took our noon lunch in a metal pail. A typical sandwich was a fried egg, sometimes a fried pork chop (bone in), and a home-made cookie.  Life during the Depression years (1930-1934) were years of having nothing materially- that was a way of life; but it was also a great era for a person to build mental and physical fiber.  I am glad I lived during those simple and trying years.