Herbert D Shera

Stories told by Herbert Shera

I can remember my father having mother do the driving as he was too ill. We went over to "Uncle Jacks", M.C. Kennedys and on the way home he asked her to drive past his old home place. There was nothing left of building, etc., but he stopped and pointed up this ditch on a hillside. He said "When I was a little boy I used to sit in the cabin door and watch the Indian ride down past here. The cabin sat right up there."

As a child I was rather sickly and remember once being confined to bed when Daddy got a new horse. Nothing would do but he had to bring the horse up to the bedroom window so I could look it over. The yard was soft as it was in the spring, but Daddy brought the horse up anyway.

He always farmed with horses; would only have a tractor to do threshing or straw baling and not much baling.

He was very ill the last two years of his life and it must have been terrible to know so much about livestock and farming and have to hire local town kids or young men and try to get them to do things his way.

He would not allow any animal to be in a farmed field after the spring thaw started. He said every place they stepped made a clod that had to be disced and harrowed.

We had a large yard with bridal wreath and other shrubbery. Mother had a beautiful canna bed plus other flower beds. After Daddy was no longer able to mow the year (he had a 24" reel type mower with cast iron wheels that I swear weighed 75 lbs.) he decided to fence the year and get some sheep to keep the grass down. As I remember, my mother expressed some doubt as to the advisability of this project, but he explained that not only would they havea the grass mowed, but also the woolies would grow wool, have more sheep, and put on weight so that the extra poundage would tell come selling time, making this an extremely profitable venture. As I recall, all the preparations needed were to fence the south side of the year (keep them out of the garden) and across the front of the house, necessitating a gate for the front steps and the driveway. This driveway gate created some of the most unique situations. Automobiles of the late twenties and early thirties were not noted for their braking qualities, emergency or otherwise. The driveway sloped to the street in front of the house at an angle which tested my mothers strength on the emergency each time we left. I, being to small and Dadd too weak, she had to drive and open the gate. The gate post had also moved after being set so the gate swung uphill. As I remember, there was not a post to tie it to so it would stay open so she had to pull it up until it struck on the band to hold it, if the wind was not blowing in the right direction. If it was, you can be assured the gate would shut before the car got thru it. Mom, being a school teacher and highly nervous, decided there had to be a better way. She decided to check on the whereabouts of the sheep, then open the gate, back the car from the garage, drive thru the gate, park in front of the house and shut the gate. One item she had overlooked was the thirty five minutes it took her and me and all the neighbors to get the sheep back through the gate, as they had all galloped madly after the car as if it were a lovesick ram uttering natures most beautiful love call. We experiencedd various modifications of this basic plan as long as we had these little moneymakers. One item I might add was that the "lawnmowers" ate all the shrubs, the flower beds, and a three year old stack of hay Daddy neglected to enclose. They were very careful to not touch one blade of grass, possibly because it was all covered with sheep manure. This in turn caused the grass to grow by leaps and bounds, ncessitating the use of a team and hay mower, which in turn managed to get caught in the fence in a few places. The mower was suggested after Mom would be unable to find me if I strayed from one of the sheep paths into the taller grass.

The local dog pack got into the sheep pen one nite causing quite a loss of sleep. The next morning, early, a truck arrived and loaded the "mowing machines" leaving us to cope with our yard by different means.

I believe that about three months after the departure of the sheep (and the fence) that the laides of the local club started to let Mom have her turn at entertaining again.

I can recall that when my dad would go to the field, I would get to ride at the back of the wagon and dangle my feet. On reaching the field it was home for me. He knew horses and mules and never allowed me to be where I might get hurt or distract him.

Some of the old timers and my mother told me that Daddy was a horse trainer and trader. He used to supply matched teams for the big department stores dray wagons in Des Moines. This was highly profitable and he used to have spares on hand so that he could match any span at any time.

Mom said when they would go to a sale she had seen Daddy go in a pen with enraged fighting bulls and bring them out one at a time when everyone else was afraid to go near.

When Ralph Murphy was a boy he used to help my dad and he has told me that Daddy would buy a mule that no one could work. In about three or four days Daddy would be working them in harness, but that some of them only Daddy could handle.

He always had big mules for most of his work.

They tell of one mule who was always looking for his change. Daddy had worked four of them on a plow all afternoon, unhitched, and driven them home walking behind. When he got to the gate he stopped them, dropped the lines and went to open the gate. When he got the gate open, the mules started thru. The outlaw was walking with his head over his shoulder and taking short steps. When Daddy could see what was happening, there I was, two years old, holding the lines, driving them thru the gate and the mule was watching that I didn't get hurt. When I would stumble, he would stop.

After Daddy got weaker, he was much about the house. He always had a good pocket knife and I always wanted to borrow it. Mom was afraid I would cut myself or lose it. I usually got to borrowi it and I usually lost it.

When Daddy was well and able to farm, he was a stickler for precision and order. Machinery was greased and stored properly. No leaving anything in a corner.

They tell that the first Halloween after he and Ina moved to Swan, he had all his wagons and other machinery lined up in a nice row by the barn. Ssome of the local young men decided they would look better up on main street. As they gathered about the first wagon in preparation, a large white form arose from the wagon box and began cracking heads with a hickory stick. This was Dadd in his long underwear.

As long as he was alive we were passed over at Halloween.

As he became weaker, he spent most afternoons and evenings in bed. I used to go and lie with him. I would usually go to sleep with him and wake in my own bed. On the night he died I went to sleep with him. I awoke in the middle of the night terrified. He had died, which I did not know or understand, and the undertaker had been there and got him. In those days the undertaker affixed a wreath, made of wood and painted black with black satin ribbons to the front door of the house to dignify a death had taken place. It was this wreath, blowing in the wind and tapping on the house which had awakened me.

The next three days I do not recall.

The day of the funeral it had snowed and drifted. Jerry Speed brought the County caterpiller and plowed the drifts so the hearse could come to get the casket. In those days the body was returned to the home and neighbors and friends sat up with the family, night and day, until the funeral. It began to snow about eleven o'clock. The funeral was at two. Jerry had to plow the road across the river to a corner east of what was then Percy. Here the farmers in the area met the hearse with teams and bobsleds. The casket was hauled about three quarters of a mile to the Hughes Cemetery. I was too small and had to stay in the car. My Uncle Herbert Black was driving and we plowed some pretty big drifts on the way home.

We had a furnace with wall registers in our house. A hand fired coal fed furnace. You had to go to the basement of fire it. I guess half my life was spent (until I was seventeen) with a book and my back up against the register in the diring room.

One night Mom had gone across the street to talk to Laura and Bent Walker. Usually I went also, but I guess my book was too interesting. As I read, something began to bother me. Finally I put my book down and listened. What I heard was my fathers footsteps coming up the basement stairs. I sat there frozen until he stopped on the landing, then I went out the front door like a bullet. The front door had a nite lock on and I slammed it or the wind of my passing shut it. Mom was very angry at my foolishness and would not listen to my story. She finally remembered the bathroom window was unlocked, so she took off the screen and boosted me thru to go unlock the door. I guess I was more afraid of Mom than footsteps on the stairs. I would not believe this myself, except that a few months later my cousin Madelon Black stayed all night with us. She was quite small, lived in Des Moines and did not remember my Dad. Mom put her to bed on a daybed we had in the living room. The next morning she asked "Aunt Hallie, who was that walking in here last night?" As we had heard nothing Mom asked her what she had heard and where. Madelon went to the kitchen door and then walked across the dining room into the living room and over to my Dad's chair. A sort of reclinging chair with springs that squeaked if you had enough weight. She said, "they sounded like they had slippers on" and she drug her feet as she walked. My Dad wore slippers and in his last days they drug on the floor. She said "I heard them sit down cause the chair squeaked." Draw your own conclusions.

I will now list two episodes told me by Mable Passmore.

Mable and Everett lived east of Runnells on a farm. After Ina died Dadd would drop in to visit. Usually about suppertime. He had not been there for sometime and Mable and Everett had a chance to get a better farm some distance North of Runnells, so they moved.

Daddy drove up one evening, went to the kitchen door as usual, opened the door and tossed his hat in. You can imagine his surprise when a strange family came bringing his hat to the door. Mable said he used to tell this and laugh about it.

He was driving in Des Moines and made some kind of a wrong move. Two local gendarmine observed this and summoned him to the curb. The most vocal of the two proceeded to list all the pentalties for this breach of local ordinances. All the time Daddy was sitting with his hand behind his ear and an attentive expression on his face. After repeating himself, about as loud as he could scream and discerning no look of comprehension on Daddys face, he turned red faced and breathless to his partner and said "This Son of a Bitch is deaf as a post. He hasn't heard a word. We might as well let him go." He turned to Daddy and waved him on. Daddy removed his hand from his ear and drove serenely down the street, careful not to laugh until out of sight.