"Life on the farm"

by Mae (Silfies) Minnich
#442.b(4)(a)3.
December 2000

"My name is Mae Eva Minnich. My maiden name was Silfies. I am going to tell you what I remember of my family. I have left out a lot of the sad stories and there were many. Alcohol took my father’s life by his own hand, and he took the life of my mother. I was one of five children: Earl, the oldest, Floyd, myself, Russell, and Mildred. We all became orphans in one awful moment. I was born in Seemsville, Northampton County, Pennsylvania, on June 5, 1912. There were very few hospitals at that time and not too many people who could afford to have a baby in a hospital. Midwives usually delivered the babies. We later moved to Bath, Pennsylvania, which was very rural at that time. When we lived in Bath, my mother would take all five of us children to visit her Aunt Sarah Serfass and Uncle Harry, who was the owner of the hotel there. The house had a slate roof and siding and mother would always say, "This is where Mae was born!" Several years ago, I went back to see if it was still there but it had been remodeled and had new siding on the outside and the slate was gone.

As best that I can remember, our farm had a silo, a lot of sheep, cows, chickens, pigs, and horses. We had a horse named George, and we used to use him to pull tree stumps out of the ground to make room for planting.

When I was only two years old, my brother, Russell, was born, and when I was five, my sister Mildred was born at the home of the "Beltsman family." This was another farm, not far from where we lived. Floyd and Earl, my older brothers, attended the Edelman School about a half a mile from our home.

My great-grandmother, whose name was Henrietta Serfass, stayed at our place when my sister was born. She would sit in front of the coal stove in our kitchen, mend socks and rock the cradle to put my sister to sleep. Our home had three bedrooms upstairs, a living room, dining room, and a small room where my mother would do her ironing and mending. We had a big kitchen with a fireplace where the stove was set into it. We cooked on a wood stove. One day we had a fire in the chimney, and then the fireplace was used to store things. We did have a pot belly stove in the living room.

I loved to sit on the wide windowsills and watch the animals graze outside. We had no electricity, no bathrooms, and a wooden tub that was used for baths. We would all five take a bath, one after another in the same tub.

We had a big spring house in the meadow, where we kept the milk and meat so nothing would spoil. It was very cold in there. The milk was taken to the creamery once a week in metal milk cans.

Christmas time was really a big time for us. We had a Christmas tree and we clipped tiny candles to the branches. Our toys were very slim. We would get hard candy and clothes from our grandmother, such as nightgowns and caps that she made out of stockings. Mother made all of our clothes from hand me downs, as well as the knickers that the boys wore at that time. We all had one outfit for Sunday School, and when we came home from church, we had to change into old clothing. We were so proud to have people tell us how nice we looked in our Sunday best.

When I was ten years old, my mother taught me how to iron the clothes. We would lay a flat board on the table and then iron with a heavy iron that had to be heated on the cook stove.

We had four cows and we would have to milk them before we went to school in the morning. The boys had to clean the stable and brush the horses. One day, my two older brothers took some of dad’s rifle shells to school. We had a big potbelly stove in the middle of the one room schoolhouse. Two boys that were neighbors of ours, dared my brothers to throw the shells in the stove. They took the dare, and the shells made the stove crack in the middle and everyone was sent home. My father that night told the boys to get ready for bed and then he came upstairs with a leather strap cut in two. You never heard such yelling and crying for him to stop beating them. Needless to say they never touched any more shells. They could hardly sit after that one.

Just before I started school there was an epidemic of measles. We were not to leave the house until the whole place was fumigated. Right after that we all had Diptheria and again we had to stay home. Each one of us got shots under our arms and they were very painful. They made us so sick. The only one who didn’t get Diptheria was mother. Uncle Norman Silfies, who lived about a block from our place, had it so bad they had to lance his throat so he could breathe. We walked about a mile to school and up a steep hill. On top of the hill there was a house where an elderly couple lived. We would stop in when it was very cold and she would always have cookies or a piece of pie for us. They had a photo slide, which we used to look through and see pictures. They were very nice people.

We spoke back and forth in Pennsylvania Dutch at home which was a mixture of German and English. We also spoke Pennsylvania Dutch in church and school. Our teacher used to explain things in Dutch if we didn’t understand the English. We had no water in school and we had to take turns carrying a bucket about a quarter of a mile from school. We had no electric or indoor toilet. We had a two-hole toilet outside which had a door with a half moon hole in it.

Our father and brothers were great hunters and fishermen. We ate all kinds of meat that they got from hunting: groundhog, rabbit, deer, and duck. We butchered the hogs in the fall for pork and we always had chicken that my father and mother slaughtered. Dad was very stern and never bothered much with the children. In those days, my father worked during the day in a cement mill and helped with the farm at night. On the weekend he would take the car apart piece by piece and then by Monday morning, the car was altogether again. The bosses at the mill nearby had him work on their cars sometimes because he was very mechanical.

Our mother was such great fun to be with, but she worked very hard. She plowed, cultivated the farmland, and got things ready for planting in the spring. She loved the outdoors and would rather be plowing than doing chores in the house. Before she would leave for the fields in the morning she would mix the dough for bread and when I got home from school, I would put it in the oven to bake. Nothing ever tasted so good as a warm piece of mother’s bread with a lot of homemade butter on it. She was a great cook and many a night we had company at the table, especially on the weekend. Mother loved to go sledding in the wintertime. We would use anything to sit on, but shovels worked the best. We had a big hill near the creek and we would climb up and then slide down. It was so much fun. One day, mother and my sister Millie, landed in the creek and the ice broke. They both got soaked.

When I was 11 years old we moved to the last house and farm. We had 52 acres of land and a brand new barn that was just built. The house was old and needed a lot of work. My father paid $8,000 for the farm. When my parents died, not a one of us--Earl, Floyd, Russell, Mildred or myself--saw anything from that farm again.

All three of my brothers went into the military. Earl was stationed in Panama and got malaria from insect bites. Norman Silfies, dad’s brother, used to shoe horses in the military. He was very happy go lucky all the time. He used to come and play with the boys. This was something my father had trouble doing. Uncle Norman used to manage some of the farms for some of the well-to-do owners in the cement business. He loved farming and especially loved horses.

Harvey Silfies was a contractor in the Northampton area and he built and fixed up houses. He was very good at his job, everyone said. Mabel and Minnie Silfies, his daughters, were educated to be teachers.

When I was 11 years old, I was sent to live at the home of Aunt Hattie and Uncle George Schisler. Hattie was my mother’s half sister. My grandmother was very ill and I had to help take care of her. I did the mending, washing, and ironing when I lived there. I lived there several years. Grandmother Amenda (Serfass) Becker and her daughter, Aunt Hattie, were two of a kind. They were stern and very demanding. My grandmother was not married when she had my mother. Mother told me her father’s last name was Kostenbader and he was a teacher. When my grandmother married Harrison Becker, my mother had to live with relatives because he stated he did not want to raise someone else’s child. I always felt bad for my mother. She always got hand-me-downs for clothes which she re-made for herself.

After my parents died, I went to live with Aunt Hattie and Uncle George until I got married. I had to quit school and I went to work in the silk mills. I worked in Northampton, Catasaqua, and Bath, Pennsylvania. I walked to and from work, except when I worked in Bath. There I took the trolley car part way, and then walked one hour to get home in all kinds of weather. I also worked at a shirt factory. That was a very hard place to work and I caught on to what was going on there fast. The bosses took some of the women in the back offices for you-know-what. I just did my work and stayed clear of them. There were a lot of foreigners who spoke very little English working in the mills at that time. I did not work there too long.

When John and I got married in Northampton, Pennsylvania, in 1934, times were hard. We both worked in a silk mill. I used to make $5.00 a day and the work was very hard. I used to cut my neighbors’ hair and give wave permanents. I got 15 cents for a haircut and $1.00 for a perm. Every little bit helped then. I continued to cut hair after we moved to Linwood, Pennsylvania. John had several jobs before working for the Sun Oil Company in Marcus Hook, Pennsylvania, as a machinist. We never owned a car until 1956 because the Pennsylvania Railroad and buses were nearby and we walked everywhere we wanted to go. John walked several miles to and from work each way. Life was hard, but I think it made us into what we are today. Because we have always been a team and faced the bad times together it made us stronger. We were always active in church-type activities and Scouting until our children graduated from high school. We have never gone to bed angry at each other. I guess this is why we have been married 66 years and lived to be 88."