Tuesday, August 30, 2005

History Lesson: The Delco Plant


This is a pretty typical Delco Light Plant. They were often used on farms, homes and camps before rural electrification. With 16, lead / acid cells in tall, square glass jars you would have a battery bank to supply 32 volts dc to the home. You could get 28, 30, and 32 volt light bulbs, which had ordinary screw in bases. The voltage for the bulb depended upon how far from the light plant and battery bank were from the bulb. They generally burned either Distillate or Kerosene, after being started with gasoline. . . . borrowed from the internet
Gramps and Granny had a Delco Plant, that is what they always called it, in the basement of the "new" house at Peru. Gramps built the house before electricity was available in rural Madison County. He knew that rural electric was not far off so he wired the house for electricity but in the meanwhile, the folks used a Delco Plant (generator) to run the appliances in the house.

Tracia Hofmeister, August 30



She gives kisses and hugs and tucks the little ones up in bed. She kisses boo boos, wipes noses and tears. She referees and cheerleads, teaches colors and counting and manners. She feeds and bathes and picks up after. She has eyes in the back of her head. Mother

She attends classes, writes papers and takes tests. She apprentices in the local school, fills in for the absent teacher and chaperones the junior high dance. Student and teacher.

She tends her elderly clients, runs errands, give meds. She arrives on time, bonds with her folks and always goes the extra mile. She gives tender, loving care, a gentle hand and even resuscitates when that situation presents itself. Caregiver.

She cleans and organizes. She paints and decorates, fixes and repairs. She sweeps, dusts, polishes and creates. House plants thrive and her thumb grows green as she learns to garden and landscape. Domestic engineer and artist.

Petite, pretty; beautiful bride. She supports, listens, comforts, encourages, cajoles, teases and rejoices with him. Softball widow. Wife.

She entrusts her precious ones to grandparents even though it is hard to leave the little ones. She welcomes in-laws with open arms and makes gifts of peanut butter and jelly and cashews; she is hospitable and generous. Beloved daughter-in-law, Tracia

Thursday, August 25, 2005

Dana Lee Frey, The Champ



Dana Lee Frey, Father and Ping Pong Champ

Dana celebrated his 33rd birthday on August 25, 2005. In the new language of the internet, he is my SIL. I think. I have not taken a class in that language, or checked out a dictionary, but I am assuming that such an acronym means son-in-law. He is husband to Erica and Dad to Morghan, Jack and Maddie Mae.

He is a man's man. He is competitive. He is athletic and generous and a big tease. He wins consistently in competitions and beats me in Pitch although “the women” can usually win at “Up and Down the River”. I think he has been thrown out of Scrabble competitions for creative spelling. Rules must always be spelled out ahead of time, when playing with Dana, and carved in stone - paper isn’t good enough! Someday, when we cannot stand to lose another game to him, girls, we shall stage a Pictionary contest and then we will see who the “Big L” is!

Dana, happy birthday! Work hard and play hard. Know when to hold ‘em. May you always be enthusiastic, have coconut cream pie and lose ONCE in a while!

Friday, August 19, 2005

The Brick

Joseph Austin Hofmeister, 2 years

Grampa Dale and then his son, Lanny, used to say that certain of our kids had the "devil in his/her eyes". I never liked that much, the reference to the devil, because the look in the eye was just mischievious, curiousity, okay, pure orneriness to me. And that is what I see when I look in Joseph Austin Hofmeister's eyes, pure, unadulterated orneriness.

Joe is busy, active, agile and impulsive. His dad calls him "the Brick". Joey's eyes give him away alot; I can see what he's thinking sometimes -- before he acts -- but then other times -- Not! He's quick to think, to act, to do!

I think he is ever curious, ever watchful, ever learning. I've mentioned this before but it is a good illustration. He watched his cousin, Jack G. ride a 2-wheel bicyle at age 3-1/2 years. If you remember, when you are young and get off your bike, you don't put the bike on the kick stand. You hop off and drop the bike down on the ground. Joey, not able to balance a 2-wheeler yet, pedaled the tricycle up and down and up and back. Got off the trike, and laid it on it's side. Then he rode it some more and laid it down again. Big boys don't just get off the bike, Joey noticed; they lay them down. And that is what Joe did.

Happy 2nd year, dear Joey. Love, Nana

Wednesday, August 17, 2005


Forrest, or Daddy as we called him, relaxing after a long day at the junk yard. Daddy wore uniform pants and a flat brimmed cap (as a gas station attendant might) at the junkyard but in this picture, I think that his just his thick head of hair -- no cap.

The house is the "junk yard" house that dad built with the help of his wife and children. The family mixed the mud and "toted and fetched" while Daddy mudded the bricks, laid them in, leveled and plumbed. He built the house on weekends and evenings while starting a new business in Afton, Austin Auto Parts.

Daughters, Nancy, left, and Linda right

Daddy

I called him Daddy and he is always in my memory. One of the earliest actual memories is of Daddy telling Mary, Linda and I a bedtime story, probably one of Aesop's fables or Goldilocks and the three bears. Mary was still in the crib and after a long day working at the junk yard, I think now, that he was probably weary and trying to finish up the day, he perched on the mattress in Mary's crib. The crib broke! Of course, there was laughter and chaos and excitement for a bit but Mommy soon had things sorted out. Mary was tucked in the lower bunk in the boys' room with me, Linda put to bed in the girls' room and Daddy moved back to the living room, to his chair, to watch the news and soon after, to bed for the night.

I remember that we "three little girls" would sit on Daddy when he was at the house for lunch and taking his noon nap. We'd pinch his nose when he snored or maybe just cuddle up with him while he slept for a few minutes. Then he kissed his wife and went back to the "shop" to finish the second half of the day. He'd work 8 a.m. until 6 p.m., six days a week and if he had a personal project going like building a fold-down camper from the wheels up so that the family could vacation all over the U.S. two weeks of each 52, building a room on to the back of the 3-bedroom home already housing 2 adults and 9 children or mixing the "mud" in the small cement mixer for the new driveway, he'd get up after supper and work another 2 or 3 hours. He'd work Sunday afternoons, laying up the bricks on the new patio or adding another bay on to the junk yard. I remember one evening watching him cut a car windshield out of a big piece of glass. (In those days, they would order an actual size pattern, lay it on a big sheet of glass and cut it out with a glasscutter.) I was fascinated! It took patience and a steady hand; I wanted to try but didn't ask. It looked like an art to me. I'm not sure there were too many things my father didn't try to do at least once. And he mastered quite a few.

There were plenty of Sundays that he didn't work and the folks would load all nine of us up in the car and haul us off to see relatives or sightseeing. I remember, barely, a trip to the St. Joe or the Kansas City zoo, a trip to the Grotto, various state parks, the tower at Winterset or just a drive through the countryside past houses and farms that Daddy once knew -- Del's place, Bertha and Virgil's farm, Great Grampa Wilson's homestead. If Daddy didn't have a project going on Sunday, we knew that we would end up visiting somewhere or seeing something -- even if it was just up the hill to Gramma and Grampa Austin's or stopping and looking when the original Interstate 35 was being built. One of the early station wagons that Daddy drove had a bumper sticker proclaiming "NO VACANCY" on the back window which caused many a smile from passers-by. Sometimes the folks were asked, is that a Sunday School class? Not thinking we might all be one family. That made Daddy laugh. The folks made it fun though, being a crowd, and Daddy usually had some funny story to tell about raising a large family.

I don't remember Daddy as a farmer but I've seen the pictures of the lean, fit, small-framed man who arose before dawn to start the fire so that when his wife and children got up the house would be warming, who milked morning and then again at night. Who picked corn by hand, tossing the ears into the horse-drawn wagon until his hands were raw and bleeding. He picked in the early morning frost, in the snow, if need be, or in the beautiful, crisp autumn afternoon. It might take until Thanksgiving or, as he recalled in one of his newspaper articles, practically up until New Years the first year he was married, to get the crop in. Daddy sometimes worked a part-time job in addition to taking care of the farm and the livestock. He said that in order to build the Peru house, he supplemented the farm income by working at the newspaper in Winterset. He also wired houses for electricity when the rural electric came to Madison County and I think he laid some "block" basements too.

I've heard the story of how, before I was born, Daddy breathed the life back into Virginia when she was overcome by gas fumes. The pilot light went out on the Arco plant in the "new" Peru house. Mommy had a headache and the children were lethargic and cranky when he came home, smelled the fumes and moved his family outside for fresh air. This must have been a very scary thing as I never heard Daddy tell the story and I didn't hear it told until I was an adult.

Daddy liked farming with horses, liked the cows and didn't care much about hogs except at the breakfast table. He liked a good dog and had one in Ring, the collie trained to bring in the cows on the farm. Daddy moved Ring to Afton with the rest of the family and, living on the highway, it wasn't long before ol' Ring was hit by a car. Daddy welded together a fancy headstone and buried Ring in the sideyard and man's best friend was remembered. Daddy (and Mommy) adopted "Spike", the black lab when Uncle Chub moved his family to Texas and didn't think two adults, four children AND a lab would survive a trip from Afton to Dallas / Ft. Worth. Daddy loved to tell the story about one Sunday morning when he checked the "shop" to see what was going on and Spike had a full-grown man cowering atop his car. We children sat on Spikes back, pulled his ears and Mama cat glared and ate first at the "dog pan" while Spike stood back and remembered his "place". And later there was "Shorty".

Daddy would sometimes get after the boys for wrestling or pestering and he would say "I'll never have two boys together, again" -- this after 9 children -- as though he might have it to do over or there were more children to come! And although I remember him being occasionally gruff with "the boys", or threatening to "stop the car" if they didn't quit pestering, I remember only once him raising his voice to the "three little girls". We were playing loudly in the back of the Ford Econline pickup while he was was trying to visit with someone. What a shock when he got after us! I remembered that for a long time and I'm sure it was an incentive to remember my manners better when Daddy was visiting with a customer or a relative.

I remember Daddy's concern and tenderness when he batted the softball that hit me right between the eyes. I should have caught it! but Daddy was sorry and sympathetic and I probably sported the the large goose egg with pride -- after the pain subsided.

I remember after Mommy telling us girls "no" that, we "three little ones" would contrive an opportunity to look very sad in front of Daddy, or to sit and cry silently and when he found out the "problem", he'd say, Mommy, can't they do that? Don't you think they could? And sometimes, Mommy would relent and sometimes, not. But it was always heart warming when Daddy would say, "oh, Mommy, can't they?"

This entry has become much longer than first anticipated but one memory written, spawns another. Perhaps on another day, I will record more of my fond memories of my beloved parents and the days of my childhood.

In remembering and honoring my dear Daddy, I hope that I have brought through his warmth and love, his sense of humor and his responsibility to his family. How hard work was no stranger to him but that he yearned to be an artist with wood, rebuilding an automobile, laying a basement and even later, throwing pottery on a handmade wheel. My Daddy loved his "good wife", his children, a good story, a good memory, and a good time.