We took my parents on a little jaunt to celebrate Mother's Day. After loading them up in the van on Saturday morning we headed east toward a little spot in the road called Rowley. I had my laptop powered up and a microphone plugged in ready to have my mom tell about the places she went as a girl,and about her grandparents and parents. This little rural community of Rowley share the history of both my mom's parents the Schmidt's and the Theden's. It was fun to hear her tell the memories she had, some of which I knew and some I didn't.
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| P. C. Thedens Home 2012 |
We drove by all the houses, building sites that her parents and grandparents lived in the Rowley area. Also saw several of the Theden's siblings homes too. There were a lot of Thedens kids about 10 I think without looking it up. Grandpa P.C. Thedens was a farmer who had come from Illinois. This home is still in the family.
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| Robert Schmidt home at the farm 2012 |
Grandpa Schmidt was a farmer and a carpenter, my mother has just a few memories of coming to the farm, but mostly remembers going to their home in Rowley on Sunday afternoons and spending a week with them during the summer months. She remembers Grandma Schmidt always cooking or working in the flower beds around the house.
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| Robert & Emma Schmidt retirement home 2012. |
Sometimes they would take Grandpa & Grandma Schmidt and they would go visit the Haine's Cousins on Sunday evenings. Hazel always made jello with bananas and would make popcorn down in the basement for them. When Mom was older she would drive Dick, JoAnn and Wayne around the countryside, sometimes Hazel would pack a picnic for them. She remembered one time they stopped with a picnic at a grove a trees nearby to eat and the next thing they knew someone was shooting a gun and the bullets were flying over their heads. They ran to get in the car and she thought she had the car in first gear reved up all the way back home to Hazel's. The neighbor didn't want them in his woods, I guess. Boy, have times changed. :0
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| My mom was born while they lived in the upstairs apartment above the hardware store 2012. |
My Grandpa Ed was one of the older Theden's siblings. He moved to Jesup after marrying my Grandma to start a portable mill grinding business. He would drive from farm to farm and grind oats, corn, etc. to feed the livestock at each place. In those days, a farmer did not have their own mill like we would today.
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| The Ed Thedens home in Jesup 2012. |
They lived in this home for several years.....I have always known it as the Tonn house before they bought a lot a couple doors down ......which was the edge of town.
Grandpa Schmidt built the garage......as a house and they lived in the garage for several years before they built the rest of the house. It had a kitchen and bathroom toward the back side and the kitchen cupboards were still there as we cleaned out the house in the 1980's. Mom remembered having her own bedroom, but her brother had a pull-out bed to sleep in every night.
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| This was Grandpa & Grandma T's house to me growing up...... climbing the trees, ran through the grapevines, learned to sew in Grandma's sewing room, played ping pong in the basement, dug around in Grandma's store room, woke up on Friday morning to Grandma vacuuming under my bed because it was Friday and she cleaned house on Friday, learned to make rolls and pies by watching her every Saturday for Sunday dinner. My Grandpa T. planted all the trees on this property.....he liked to dig and pull weeks. |
After they had completed the whole house, Mom really didn't consider it her home as she did not live here very much while going to college and then she got her first teaching job and lived in La Porte City where she met Dad.
We had a great day together and as I told Dad......guess what we are doing for Father's Day!!! Down in "Czechland".....Dysart, Traer, & Reinbeck
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| Pulled this book off my shelf the other day and what a treasure it is. It is full of great prose and stories of Oregon. I have all of her cookbooks and they are wonderful. I am sure you can still find them and they would make wonderful gifts for any loved ones who love to read family stories surrounding the recipes. |
Happy Mother's Day to you, Mom.
I love you dearly and you are truly a treasure to me.
