100 Years of Sheltering Families
Recollections of Living in the Homestead House of Jakob and Mari Erdman on a Farm near Barons, Alberta.
By Glenda Erdman Barnhart, and Carole Erdman Grant, their great-granddaughters
This home was built in 1906 by Jakob Erdman, his family and their neighbours. Carole said, ‘When we removed the old wall paper and coverings we found the names of ALL the people who worked on building the house and the date, 1906. I only wish we had made a note of who they all were because other names besides family were written there. We carefully covered them up with the new surface.’
The house was made of wood with straw for insulation and sheathed with shiplap painted white. Glenda and Carole said that it was cool in the summer and warm in the winter. This New House replaced the sod house, built in 1904 on the homestead, which was where they first lived.
This pleasant farmhouse was built far back from the road, with the front door facing south. The north back door was protected from the weather by a large porch with the entry on the east. The washing machine and various tubs were in the porch, as were outer wear coats, boots, etc.
Entering the large kitchen with a walk-in pantry on the left, I remember a rectangular table, with a bench, a cast-iron coal stove near the middle, against the east wall and a sink with a small pump to bring water from the well (which I think had to be primed often by a large pump). Under the sink drain there was a bucket that was always (in my young mind) in danger of overflowing. Beside the sink was a low shelf on which the drinking water pail stood, with a communal dipper beside it.
I don’t remember the other kitchen furniture, but there was a trap door in the floor with a recessed ring handle and this led to a dirt basement where I remember seeing rows of canned fruit in glass jars on wooden shelves. I am guessing that potatoes, carrots and other root vegetables were also kept there. This basement had a nice ‘dry dirt’ smell which I liked.
There was a smelly kerosene lamp hanging from the ceiling in the kitchen, which was later replaced, much to our delight, with a low wattage electric light bulb when a wind charger was built above the well. There was a wainscoting of narrow tongue-and-groove panels, and the ceiling was also tongue-and groove, to the despair of my mother as dust constantly sifted down from the attic. Ellen and Roy Johnson’s children (our cousins) came to stay with us once, maybe for more than a week, and I can remember us all lined up at the table at breakfast eating our porridge, when an unhappy Gerry plopped his bowl of porridge on Laurie’s head, causing a great commotion.
A door on the south wall led to an entry hall which was large enough to have space for two wicker planters holding pots of red geraniums, which I disliked because of the strong odor to my sensitive nose. I was in my fifties before I liked geraniums. There was a telephone in the hall for our party line. Our telephone number was easy - 1111 and other parties on the line had 3 shorts or a long and a short and a long, etc. to call the folks on our party line. To call the operator to reach other party lines, a button was pressed and at the same time, the handle turned. I used to think I would like to be a Telephone Operator so I would know what all was going on! Later on, I thought working in the village Beauty Parlour would get the same results.
The south front door had a screen door (as did the back door) in the summer and a storm door in the winter. A door on the west wall led to a large bedroom with two south-facing windows and it was in this room that my earliest memory comes to mind. My hurried mother was trying to comb out the tangles in my curly hair and I was crying because it hurt. My great-grandmother was sitting in a large chair by a small table on which was a pitcher and a bowl. She dipped her comb in the water and gently combed out my hair – I remember her kindness.
In the south-east corner of the room there was a large bed; I think it was brass or metal, and I remember hearing that Great-grandpa had died in his sleep in that bed. I remember that Great-grandma also died in her sleep in that bed. The room was sunny and pleasant, and I am sure it had wallpaper on the walls.
A small coal stove in the northwest corner warmed the room. A few years ago I visited Denny Johnson who now owns that house and he said they found 13 layers of wallpaper on the walls.
From the entry hall, there was a door on the east wall leading to the beautiful, large living room, heated by a tall, chrome trimmed parlour coal-burning stove sitting on a metal pad. It had isinglass windows which reflected the colour and shapes of the flames inside. My favourite spot was right in front of it where it was nice and warm. I played there with my doll until my brother took it apart to see what made the eyes open and close. Many tears were shed over that unhappy incident. Putting together the Meccano pieces was great fun, also playing Pick-up-Sticks.
A draped doorway to a large bedroom was to the right of the parlour stove, and in the photo of Great-aunt Natalie’s graduation from the University of Alberta, a lovely ornate oak rocking chair with a curved moulded seat was on the other side of the door. In the middle of the room was an unforgettable Stickley-style oak library desk and chair. There was linoleum on the floor, over a wood floor painted brown.
All the tall narrow double-hung windows had lace panels for curtains. In the fall storm windows were put on, to be taken off again when the warmth of spring arrived. These were stored out in some outbuilding until needed again in the winter months.
Mondays were unforgettable as that was Washday, which took precedence over all other activities. The big copper boiler was brought in, filled with water and when it was boiling, washed diapers, handkerchiefs and underwear were boiled. The washing machine had a hand-cranked wringer. Cornstarch was cooked on the stove and Mrs. ____’s Bluing was always added to the white clothes in the last rinse and everything was hung out on the clothesline, winter and summer. Baby Carole used to grab a chunk of cornstarch and eat it while hiding under the table.
Tuesday was my favourite day as I loved the fragrance of line-dried clothes being ironed. Sad irons with switchable handles were on the range; tablecloths, pillowcases and clothes were ironed, but bedsheets were not ironed – no time for that in this busy household! I got to help folding the flat things.
Saturday was cleaning day; floors were scrubbed, waxed and polished; furniture was dusted especially thoroughly; and I think often a chicken was killed and cleaned for Sunday’s midday dinner. We always ate ‘supper’ in the evenings, eating the left-overs from the noon dinner, the big meal of the day. At night the round tin tub was brought in, put in front of the cast-iron kitchen coal stove, and it was Bath-time. The youngest, Carole, was bathed first, and she always tried to run away after being dried off. Then on up the line, and after we three children were clean, we were put to bed, with the girls hair curled with rags, clean pyjamas, and a heated cloth-wrapped brick already warming the bed in cold weather. We were tucked in under our feather comforters or wool blankets, a wiggly Carole and I sharing the same bed, which made me long for my own bed!
Grandma Magda Erdman (Jakob & Mari’s daughter-in-law) was a good seamstress and made each of us a pieced quilt. Because Alvin was the first grandchild, he got a ‘crazy-quilt’, made of scraps of velvet, corduroy and wool and scraps of satin. We girls liked it because it felt so good to touch the variety of pieces. My quilt was a soft green background with five-pointed stars made from old dresses.
Outside the house, the yard had been pretty well left to grow on its own, but from the planting arrangements, the flowering shrubs, the row of cottonwoods, the hedges of caraganas, and the occasional tulip which showed up in the spring, it was evident that some excellent planning had gone into that yard. Robert Erdman, son of Jakob and Mari, was a passionate gardener, and imported bulbs from Holland and peonies from Japan.
While he was alive, it was a showpiece, with a clay tennis court on the west side of the yard, and many kinds of flowering bushes, a circle of caraganas formed a magical place to play or have a picnic in the summer. None of his many varieties of irises had survived in the front of the house, but near the well and wind charger, he had made an intersection path, lined with gooseberries, chokecherries, etc. In the summer, my mother sent us out into the yard to find the eggs that the chickens had laid under the bushes, and that was always fun - until, as she cracked open an egg to cook, a REALLY rotten smell filled the kitchen. That egg had been hidden out there too long!
A pig was in an area outside the yard and fed all the table scraps. Other garbage and broken dishes, etc. were dumped down the outhouse pit in the back yard. There was a big woodpile and a barrel of tar which we thought made good chewing gum. In one storage shed I spent many hours winding up the old gramophone and listening to cylinder records of Enrico Caruso and other music.
Of course there was a big garden, as we grew vegetables, berries and crab apples that could be preserved and fed us most of the winter.
We always had a cow and at least one horse, kept in the barn, which was in the very back of the yard towards the fields. Also in the ‘back forty’ were parked the old-fashioned farm wagons, one of which was a huge horizontal barrel for hauling water. There was also old machinery and a beautiful cutter sleigh with wool mohair seats. Too bad it wasn’t treasured and kept somewhere safe. But it was during the depression and Second World War and there was no thought given to useless things.
In 1944 my father had the house jacked up and moved a mile or so away onto a piece of farmland that was situated on the power line. We must have had good crops, because suddenly we had bright electric lights, a real bathroom carved out of the big bedroom and it had a flush toilet, sink and bathtub. We got an electric refrigerator, stove and washing machine, iron, mangle for quicker ironing and central heating from a furnace in the full cement basement. It was amazing! We went from living as they had in the mid 1800s to having all the conveniences of the modern world.
Glenda standing in the front door, c. 1945
There are many still vivid memories of those days, and one year I made a tiny model of the house and part of the yard for a Barons Historical Day and Estonian and Family Reunion in 2004. These thoughts, and many more, are all there in my memory.
Carole’s story:
My earliest recollections of the Jacob & Mari farm house are close to those of Glenda's except that I don't remember the house before it was renovated to have a large kitchen and dining room as it is now. I do remember when my parents renovated it in the early 50's and put drywall on the walls. In the living room beside the doorway to the right as you go into it there is a wonderful secret behind the drywall, the names of all who helped build the house, and the date. I think there were wonderful treasures in the attic as well, but I was never allowed up there.
Glenda talks about the oak library table and the Arts & Crafts chairs that are in a photo or two. These pieces of family furniture are currently in my daughter Kelly's possession. The table is her office desk in her business in Calgary and the chairs are in her living room.
I also have some paintings that were in the house. Two are done with pastels and one is oil. I know nothing about them except that I remember seeing them early in my life. I still have that sewn patchwork quilt top that Grandma Magda made for me that Glenda mentioned. I think my love of fabrics and textures all go back to the quilt of many fabrics that Glenda also mentions - I was 3 years old and I distinctly remember running my fingers over the chunky corduroys, delicate fine silks, rough and scratchy Harris tweeds, and various other pieces. I can still feel them when I remember them!
Quite a few years ago Glenda remembered where the earliest toilet pit was on Great Grandfather Jacob's farm so we decided to dig through the earth in it. We knew that in the early days the toilet pit was the garbage dump and broken china and other unwanted things were dropped in the hole. We found many pieces of china, many bottles, enamel containers that were damaged and several car license plates dated 1917 and 1919. These items are also at Kelly's house. Through the course of generations living on that farmstead (we called it ‘the old place’), there were several locations for the old toilet pits and no doubt there are still many unearthed treasures. There was a rumour that someone had lost a diamond ring down one of these during Jakob and Mari's life time but who knows, maybe they are just rumours, for we did not find it!
Editor’s note:
This house remains on the land where Victor Erdman (Glenda and Carole’s father) moved it in 1944. It is still being used as a residence today. At this time, Dennis Johnson (a great grandson of Jakob and Mari’s) owns this property, as well as the quarter homesteaded by Jakob Erdman in 1903.
© 2006 Barbara Gullickson
