Year of 1948

Year of 1948
I talked about the cellar being dug in a previous blog.  Then the footers were poured and next the house was built.   To save cost the barn that was square logs was tore down and that became our house, the demensions 24' x 28'.   The cracks were filled with a mud made with straw.  Then willow sticks were nailed to the walls diagonally on the inside and again mud plaster was made and put on the walls,  Then a white wash was applied.   The house was very cold.  I remember living in it and we kids would run between the studs that were going to be walls once the dry wall was put up.  Till then it was just one big room waiting for walls.  In time linoleum was placed on the floor.  For years each winter to keep the cellar warmer and also the house Dad would put fresh manure around at the foundation.  For a while curtains were our walls.
   So we had a house but now the few cattle and horses needed barn.  Then they tore the old house down and made a barn out of it.  We always had the joke of living in the barn...
   But now we were only 1/2 mile from Artichoke School.  John, Helen and Anne could walk to school.  Till now, the first few years that John and Helen went a teacher picked them up and she took them in her horse drawn sleigh.  As John got to be about 10 years old, he had a horse and the 3 of them went in a sleigh.  I can still hear how worried Mom would get if they didn't some home by a certain time.
   This move also put us 4 miles closer to the church we attended.   Which was in german till I was about 10 and then the Sunday school materals were in English.  In winter we mostly travelled by horse drawn caboose (which was an enclosed sleigh) and when the weather got warmer we rode in a box wagon pulled by horses until we got a tractor, and our first vehicle was a truck which was purchased in 1955.   Dad, Mom, Helen, Peter and Ben sat in the cab and John, Anne and myself sat in the truck bed.   We didn't feel very prim and proper crawling over the side of the truck where all the young dudes could see us doing that with a skirt or dress on.
  Well, I am getting ahead of myself, so I will end now.