AUTOBIOGRAPHY
OF
HERBERT HENRY SCHMIDT

This is an autobiography of Herb Schmidt as told to Rhonda Schmidt in July of 2011. Herb was 93 years old at the time and his memory of past events was crystal clear.

November 24, 1917, I was born in West Alton, Missouri to George Schmidt and Mary Smith Stormer. I was the sixth of eight kids: Bertha, Bill, Frank, Charlie, George, me, Albert and Ed. It was so cold in 1917 that my Mom could not give me a bath for 9 days.

[pic] (George & Mary Schmidt, Bertha, Charlie, Bill, Frank, Albert, Herb, George, Ed)

[pic]

(This photo taken in July of 2011. This is all that remains of the Schmidt
Homeplace on Red School Road in West Alton, Missouri. Herb was 93 at the time this photo was taken.)

I went to the Red School. I had to walk one mile to school. It was one big room and we had up to 35 kids with only one teacher. There were eight grades. Grades 1 thru 4 were taught every year, but grades 5, 6, 7, and 8 were taught every other year; like if 5th was taught this year then 6th would be taught the next year and the same with grades 7 and 8. The brighter kids helped the slower kids. Albert always needed help. I don’t think he graduated. I took an exam on Health and the teacher did not know how to record it because I got 100%. The year I graduated there were 4 kids who graduated from 8th grade. Because of my late birthday, I was almost 7 when I started school. Ruth Genesco was the teacher in the late years. We had one teacher that got scared when the river rose and she left and never returned. There was an old lady who boarded the teacher. Our last teacher was not boarded, she lived with her Mom and married a baseball player from the House of David. He would come and play pitch and catch with us. He brought us balls and bats. She taught until the school closed.

Our house was in West Alton with the Mississippi River to the North and the Missouri River to the South. Our house was about 1.5 miles from each river. The first time I remember the rivers flooding was 1921. I was four years old and I remember the water being in the yard. The rivers also came up to our yard in 1927 and 1935. In 1943 and 1944 the river water got in the first floor of our house. We would put a ruler outside and measure how many inches it was rising each day.

In 1935 I started doing Dad’s farming. We had 80 acres and an Aunt had 50. We bought a new tractor for $950. We had no cash so we had to buy it on time. Dad had an old tractor before. He never drove a tractor. I got sucked into farming. Everybody else in the family got jobs. I got no pay and I would work for other farmers to get money.

In the 1930’s Helen Schrader went with Louie Greenwald. He was a good guy but he was odd. She and Louie broke up and she got with Fred Carins and he was a drunk. On March 3, 1931 their barn burnt down. They had been finding arsenic lead and Paris Green in their pasture. Seven cows died in the fire. They suspected Louie Greenwald.

In 1935 I was driving a bundle wagon threshing at Fred Carins farm. Out of no where the straw caught fire. Somebody had put a bunch of matches in the straw and it burnt five straw stacks. We suspected Louie Greenwald again. That was a terrible day.

Fred Carin would not farm his Mother In-Law’s land. They didn’t get along well. My family took 50 acres over so we now farmed 130 acres. I drove bundle wagon from 1935-1940 and then we bought a combine. It cost $650.
We put in 50 acres of wheat and it worked real good. A truck from Alton came over and we loaded it and they took it to the mill. I would bail over by the airport in the winter. We would get $3.00 for bailing 150 bails. There was five of us and that was good money back then in 1941.

In October of 1940, we had to sign up for the draft for the Army. My name was called up quick. Dad got me deferred so I could stay and do the farming.

On November 7, 1941, Japan bombed Pearl Harbor. It was a rainy day. I was helping a cousin who was in the hospital. I made $1.00 per day to shuck corn. $1.50 if I did not shuck. They had two kids and I would pick them up from school. They lived with Aunt Sally.

In 1942 I bought Leo Salle’s international truck for $400. It was a big truck.

I dated a girl named Margie Wagermann for about 4 years. She worked at St. Louis in the Army Depot. She lived with her Mom and Dad. One Saturday night I went to get her for a date. She could not go because she said her Mom was sick. The next day at a West Alton filling station, the undertaker stopped in and wanted to know where August Wagermann lived. He said that Mrs. Wagermann had died last night. Margie did not want me to go to the funeral. I dug the grave. She had a sister who was married to a Smith but no relation to us. I dated her off and on. I did not have enough money to date often. We would go to the show, Princess Movie Theatre, go for hamburgers and a soda. Had to pay a bridge toll to cross the bridge into Alton, Illinois. It was a big city back then.

In 1943 and 1944 the rivers (Missouri and Mississippi) came out and we were flooded two years in a row. We worked out on the levee until the government told us it was too dangerous and we had to evacuate. We told them to go to hell. As the river was rising, we had to take cows and horses to Illinois. Charlie took the sow and pigs and put them in his yard. We built a platform for the big chickens and put them on it. We took the little chicks into one of the upstairs rooms. The water got about 6” high in the house. The cellar room caved in. That was a mess. There was at least a bushel basket of frogs and some of them got in the house. The next year the same thing happened, but we were more prepared for it. The water in the yard was hip deep. It was a big mess to clean up the three downstairs rooms. The Red Cross came through selling bread and a few other commodities. They sold the bread for twice as much. You would have thought they would have at least reduced the price, but they didn’t. It was a chore to get to town to try to get supplies. When we went to town to buy potatoes they would only give us a five pound bag because of short supply. That was not much. The water was high for a week. When we had to use the bathroom, we just used a pot and threw it out in the water. We could not put out a garden the first year because by the time the water receded it was too late. The next year we raised a good crop of corn. At that time, corn was scarce in Illinois. When we moved here we brought four truck loads out here and put it in the shed.

Moved to Illinois on July 5, 1944. Me, Dad and a real estate man looked at the farm in Alhambra.

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(This photo was taken of the old Schmidt home place in 2006. Many Years ago there was a barn straight West of the house. There was a pond Northeast of the house.)

The real estate man smoked a pipe and he ran out of matches. The three of us went to Braundmeyer’s and he asked them for some matches. There were two old people sitting on the porch. It was Elda’s mom, Kate and her Grandma Mary. Elda brought the matches out. I didn’t pay much attention to her that day.

[pic]

(The Braundmeyer Family: Kate, John, Luella, Thea, Walter, Elda, Esther)

In the middle of July 1944, I loaded the tractor and plow and came out to the farm to get ground ready for wheat. In the summer time I would sleep in the truck. When it got cold, I slept in the barn. I ate bologna sandwiches. I went into town each day at noon to get lunch and I would get enough for dinner and breakfast for the next day. I shaved using the mirror on the truck. There was a house on the property but people were living there at the time. They would be moving later. We paid $15,900 for 160 acres with a house and almost new barn. My brother Frank and I would load every Sunday to get the rest of the furniture and machinery out here. The combine was so wide that someone had to bring it out here.

Back in West Alton we had two floods two years in a row where water got in our house in Missouri. We would move to the upstairs and stay in three rooms. The chickens were put in one room and me, Frank, and Mom and Dad would stay in the other two rooms. Frank was not married then. On February 12, 1945, we moved out here to Alhambra. My sister and brother in-law and Fred Cairns and Helen had a truck. We had chickens and furniture on our truck and brother in-law had four cows and Fred had 3 horses in his truck. The only one of my brothers to help us move was Bill and he came out in the evening to help.

I traveled back to West Alton every two weeks until the first of June. I told my girlfriend I could not afford to come back any more so we broke up.
I did not know anybody here so I decided after about two weeks to go and meet the neighbors. I met Elda and she invited me in and we talked for the evening. [pic]

(I still carry this photo in my wallet to this date July 24, 2011)

Elda had a boyfriend, Otto Schuette. He was in the army. I came over one Sunday evening and she had been to a family reunion and she said, “maybe you can go to the reunion next year.” I didn’t know what she meant by that. I remember one time she went with me to Highland and showed me the fountain.

[pic]

(This photo of the Highland fountain was taken in 1965)

During the summer she told me her boyfriend was coming home and I had to make myself scarce.

Herman Johanntosettel got me a job helping the Korsmeyers thresh. I pitched bundles. Selma and Linda Korsmeyer were water girls. I asked Selma for a date and she accepted. She thought she had me, but I wasn’t satisfied with her. I only dated her five or six times, but I wanted Elda and my money was scarce for dating.

When I was cutting hay across the road from Elda’s house, she would bring me water. When her cousin had her 18th birthday, Elda asked me to go to Wilma Jean’s birthday party with her. I don’t think Elda’s mother liked Otto and Elda could not leave her situation because she was taking care of her Mom and I could not leave my situation either. I asked her to marry me and she said, “you gotta give me time.” I don’t know how much time she took. [pic] (Wedding date March 3, 1946)

Elda’s dad was a carpenter and he fell off a roof and broke his leg. I came over and she was out feeding the hogs. She couldn’t milk the cow. The mules were wild. When I told my folks I was gonna marry her, they said they would give me $5.00 per week. We did that for two years and we had to do something. I told Dad I wanted to buy the machinery. Dad said he can’t farm so he might as well sell it to me. Everything was old and I told Dad I could give him $2,000 for all machinery and the hay in the barn. I was giving them 1/3 of everything raised on the farm and $240 per year for pasture rent. Elda’s Mom and Dad loaned us $2,000 to buy the equipment. The first year we were married I farmed 30 acres of Mary Henschen’s land. I had 15 acres in corn and 15 acres in beans. The beans done good and we put $500 in the bank. The first year I paid them back what I could afford. We paid them off in about three years. We lived upstairs and ate downstairs. Elda figured out how to divide up the grocery bill. I would go back and forth to milk cows and do farm work. Elda’s Dad rented us is his 80 acres so I had 240 acres to farm.

[pic]

(Photo of me plowing my wife’s first garden in 1946. My brother George was home from the army and he helped me.)

I was farming her folks ground and my folks ground. There was no weed killer then for the crops. When I sowed beans the grass would take over and I only got 5 bushels to an acre. More grass than beans. I had seen where people were planting in rows, but my Dad and her Dad said “No”. But I did it any way and we got 20 bushel to an acre at about $2.50 a bushel. Corn made 40 bushel to an acre at about $.89 a bushel. Gas was $.30 per gallon back then in 1948.

In 1948 before we got electric, we had a cream separator. We would bring in the milk and pour it thru the separator. The cream came out one side and the milk came out the other side. In the winter time we would use the milk to make cottage cheese. We would put the cream into a churn and turn it by hand until it became butter. Then we would mold it into a one pound square and take it to town to sell. We would also take eggs in to sell. After the war, electric started to expand in our area. I don’t know how my Dad signed up, but he did. Elda’s Dad didn’t want it. He had a light plant in the little well house. An engine with batteries and a generator. The windmill was up on top of the house.

When electric came through we bought a refrigerator. Before we had the refrigerator, we would hang butter or a can of cream in the well to keep it cool. We also did that with meat. It was a pretty good pull to raise a three pound can of cream from the well.

When Jim was a baby we diluted Pet Milk and with Ron we fed him sour milk. We had to beat it up and make the nipple a little bigger. Back then most babies were feeding on their mother. I didn’t want her to do that and she did not really want to either.

Jim was born on May 25, 1949 in Highland Hospital.

[pic] (James Herbert as a baby)

We got a baby bed from Walter and Elsie. They had adopted a baby but did not keep it. The baby was not healthy. We got electricity in 1948. The first thing we bought was a refrigerator and then a washing machine. When Ron was born on December 19, 1952, we bought an electric dryer to ease the work for her.

[pic]

(Ronald Herbert as a baby)
Our third son, Lee Alan, was born June 22, 1959.

[pic]

(Lee Alan as a baby)

Saturday was bath day. We had to carry water to a black kettle outside and heat it up and then carry it to the tub. Bath water was shared. All the boys took a bath in the same water. It was the same way with the laundry. My folks had a Maytag washer with an engine under it. It was powered by gasoline. [pic] (Bath time with Ron in the tub and Lee waiting for his turn) [pic] (Herb with Jim, Ron and Lee in the bean field in 1961)

We kept young cattle in her Dad’s pasture and older cattle at my folks place. Farming wasn’t enough so I would help her dad with carpentry work for extra money. He built chimneys and such – he was a rough carpenter. Things went fairly good till 1961. My Dad died and I thought he should be buried out here. Albert was connected with some folks at Rosewood Cemetery and he took him there to bury him. My family all bought lots there except for Charlie and Bill.

We had an outside toilet until 1966 and we used catalogs for our toilet paper. We used Sears & Roebuck, Montgomery Ward, and a mail order catalog called Savage. You could not use the colored slick pages. When that was the only thing left, then you threw the catalog away. Someone would come out about once a year and pump the out house. It cost about $10 and that was a lot. My folks never did have an indoor bathroom over there. They never had running water either just a pump in the corner of the kitchen.

Elda’s Dad did not want to modernize much. We just done it as we could, a little at a time. We got an electric water system, had a monkey stove to heat. We could use coal or wood to make the fire. I use to go to Livingston mine to haul coal back for us here and my folks.

As soon as we got electricity, I got a milker from a guy in Mt. Olive. Dewey Henschen helped me put the pipe in. We helped each other a lot. The most cows we had was 11. We had a big chicken house with 200 chickens. Elda gathered the eggs. We pretty much lived on that. A man from Alton would come out and pick up the cases of eggs. I would still clean the chicken coop at both places.

Life was hard. We had her Dad and my Dad always telling us what to do. But, we made it.

Elda’s Dad lived until July 1966, it was after the fourth of July. One night we found him out in the chicken house. One morning he was sitting in the road ditch down the road a ways. He was confused. Then we had to put a lock on the outside of the doors to keep him in and he took the glass out. One day he tore the curtains down in the dining room and he turned the stove on and melted the wall. Luella came and got him to stay with her but she ended up bringing him back. I guess it was alzheimers. He had a rough life too, taking care of his wife, Kate. He died.
[pic]
(John & Kate Braundmeyer)

We went to Highland for the reading of the will. The will said $1,000 was for Elda for caring for her Mom. Otherwise, she got the same as Walter, Luella, Thea and Esther. Walter told Elda that she was gonna get the home place and she did. So she gave her portion of the money back to her family to split between them. When Thea came out of the attorney office, she said to me, “Well, you got a new rent boss,” because Elda owned the farm.

[pic]
(This photo is of the farm during the late 1990’s, before the barn was blown down in a storm).

Elda has lived on the farm her whole life. It was a hard life for Elda. She had to lift her Mom and she lifted when she should not have, even when she was pregnant. She took care of her Mom for 16 years and her Dad for 20 years.

One day Jim was riding his tricycle and he rode off the porch and fell. There was red coming out all around his mouth and we loaded him to take to the hospital. On the way to Highland Jim said, “I want to spit out this candy.” So, we turned around and came back home. Those days you did not need a doctor appointment, you just went. Dr. Wilson was a good doctor but said very few words.

Elda recalls a time when she was helping her Dad to load her Mom into the car and Jim was carrying Ronnie around to the car and he came around the side of the house and said, “Mom, I dropped Ron.” Didn’t seem to hurt him. [pic] (Jim helping with Ron)

We were gonna make some improvements to the house. We tore the plaster off and did one room at a time. John and Blanche Laux helped us. Delmar Korsmeyer helped as a carpenter. Bob Henschen did the wiring and Gene Phillipe was gonna plaster but he backed out. Kuntz plastered it on a Saturday. We moved a sink and stove into what is now the laundry room til the work was done. The furnace man came out of measure for hot water furnace. Bob Henschen did not want to do it. Me and Elda and Junior Abert soldered it and got the furnace running.

I had a baler and Jim and Ron would drive the tractor and baler. The boys got 10 cents a bale and that was their spending money. I would stand on the wagon and stack the bales. I would give hand signals to the boys to either go faster or slow up. Ronnie threw me off quite a few times. We done a lot of baling for John Laux. He was a horse man. He would bring race horses out here and doctor them up and they would win a race and then someone would buy the horse. His daughter still owns 40 acres on the hard road.

I made my own nitrogen spreader from an old milk can and we began to get a better wheat crop. My best wheat crop was 49 bushel to the acre. Now people get 80-100 bushel. We used our own seed and we had a sheller that we turned by hand.

We had a lot of different cars. I had a 1936 Dodge when we got married. When Jim was born we bought a 1939 Ford. I had Bodie put a gas heater in it because it didn’t heat good. In a year or so we got a 1946 Ford. Then a 1951 Ford and a 1956 Ford. They were all used. When my brother Charlie would trade his car every 3 years so, we would trade ours in and buy his from Butler Chevrolet in Edwardsville. We have had a lot of cars.

The first car we bought for Jim was from Hiney Uhe. It was a grayish blue big thing. Ronnie drove a 1962 Chevy Impala. Then he got a Chevy Impala convertible with the clutch out. When Jim was going to the Army, I bought the car back to keep Laura, his girlfriend then, from taking it. Somebody from Sorento bought it and drove it to St. Louis for a while.

I bought my first corn picker in Nokomis. Laverne Henschen and I went to pick it up. I never spent more than $600 on a combine and $2,000 on a tractor. That was on an International 400 tractor and plow. Elda drove a tractor for me after we were married. She would disk or harrow. Getting 10 acres done on a day was a good days work. She helped me shuck corn by hand too. That was hard work. She never milked a cow.

My Mom died in 1971. She made a will after Dad died and I could buy the farm for $250 an acre. When she got to where she needed help, Albert took her to his house. I guess he had her make a new will. They had a meeting to decide what to do. I was treated bad and Bill cried. Two appraisers came out and they took the higher one. We bought it. Got a loan from Farmers and Merchants Bank. I then sold it to Elmer Klenke for $25 more per acre.

I was going to be a maintenance man at the Hitz Home so I did not want to keep the ground. Reverend Tarmoulin demoted me. I was getting $2.50 an hour at Hitz Home. Me and Betty Zweck did not get a raise at Hitz and I was on call for 24 hours a day. I had to scrub 12 rooms on Saturday and unpack groceries. Only place I was left alone was when I was up on the roof. They were always calling me in to do something. One time I was out mowing and the Nurse called me because she needed some help. I got off the mower and left it running. While I was inside the mower slipped into gear and when I went back the mower was going round and round in a circle. There was an old lady in the home that always wanted someone to go buy pickles for her. After she ate the pickles she would pee in the jar.
Then Lemoine Foulke, who was the custodian at New Douglas School and my brother in-law, had a heart attack in 1972 and I went to work for the school district at New Douglas School. They paid me $2.75 an hour.
It was June 14th when I started at the school. I did not even see anybody for 6 weeks. I just kept on getting little raises. Got up to $8.66 per hour in 1987. I retired in 1987 and Jim Knopp took the job. He was a good man and I recommended him. I showed him what to do for 3 days. Summer time I helped him clean a couple of rooms. Jim Knopp thanked me many a time for helping him get the job.

When I retired they were remodeling Salem church parsonage and I worked there for a month. Lloyd Hosto was on the cemetery board and he was working there too. He asked me to help mow out at the cemetery and I said yes. Me and Bob Mindrup mowed about 8 or 9 years for them. Bob was gonna quit and Melvin Greer came out to mow. I told Melvin to be sure not to get too close to the bank and he rolled the tractor over the bank. Bob Dauderman came out and we pulled it out. Only front wheel was bent and Greer was not hurt bad. Little cut on the head. I decided it was time to quit. The young kids they got were not good help. They got Wayne Stille. Melvin Greer had to quit because he got a tumor. Then I would substitute at the school and mow grass and garden at home.

[pic]

(Herb mowing his lawn in summer of 2010. 92 years old)

[pic] (This photo is of Herb with a 17 pound cabbage he grew in 2010)

I planted a garden in 2011 when I was 93 years old. I grew: asparagus, potatoes, sweet potatoes, green peppers, tomatoes, green beans, cucumbers, strawberries, black berries, cabbage, sweet corn, lettuce and onions.

On August 13, 2011, Ron and Rhonda Schmidt took Herb and Elda to West Alton, Missouri to see what, if anything, was left of Herb’s old home place. Unfortunately, the only remains of the home place was an old hollowed elm tree and some bricks at the base of it. We also visited the Ebenezer Cemetery where Herb’s grandparents were buried. Herb ask us to read him the names on many of the stones and he recalled many of them.

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(This photo is of Herb’s grandmother and grandfather’s tombstone)

Herb said the cemetery property has increased in size and now is very well taken care of. He recalled it being much smaller and not being as well cared for. Many of the tombstones were so old that it was hard to read the names them. [pic]
The above tombstone is relatives of Herb’s. They decided they wanted to be Smith’s instead of Schmidt’s so they changed their name. Herb was unclear as to how or why this was done.

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This is the land that Herb’s father owned in West Alton. Behind Herb in the far distance lies the Mississippi River. The Missouri River is in the direction he is facing. The homes that are located in this area now have been built up on mounds to keep them above the flood water from the two rivers. We also looked for signs of the old school house where Herb went to school but were unable to find any remains.