No. 128, January, 2010
Journal
Rain Barrel and Peanut Squares
By Delores Miller
My maternal grandparents Fred (1871-1948) and Bertha (1876-1963) Lembke lived their final years in a small three room house, located in back of St. Peter's Lutheran Church in Big Falls Wisconsin. A quaint small hamlet, built on ledge rocks. Water and wells were scarce and in those days before indoor plumbing, neighbors shared a well and outhouse and it was a long walk to get water.
This was a primitive house, no real basement except a hole in the living room floor with a trap door. No cistern to save rain water. No automobile or telephone. The most exciting place to a young child was the rain barrel.
Wooden staved, held about 40 gallons of water which ran from the eaves on the back porch to this keg which probably held pickles in a former life. This vessel was one of those magic containers which always seemed to be overflowing with water. All summer long us grandchildren splattered the rain water.
Sometimes Grandma even heated on the wood cookstove rain water to wash our hair. The rain barrel furnished water for doing dishes, scrubbing floor, washing clothes in a Maytag wringer washing machine. Taking baths. It was truly a magic rain barrel, because no matter how dry the Wisconsin summers became, the rain barrel never ran dry.
Then the cold below zero Wisconsin winters came, and alas Grandma had to dump and overturn the rain barrel. But nature provided water for Grandma, she dragged snow in by the bucketful, to melt and provide water for the many uses she needed.
Grandpa Lembke walked to 'downtown' Big Falls every day. Visiting with A. G. Arndt in his store and to get the mail from Mrs Ziechert at her post office. She had a small ice cream shop in back of her home. Neighbors were Mr. & Mrs. August Miller and Otto and Lydia Faehling with Earl and Hazel Krueger across the road. Mrs. Miller was sickly and us kids were warned not to shout near her house, she needed quiet.
A car shed in back of the house, we cousins played in, and often had to pile slab wood from Faehling's saw mill. Grandma used that to heat the house with the big wood stove in the living room. The outhouse was in back of the car shed. Cedar trees in front. Every summer we seemed to have family gatherings under those trees, Weisman Weico pop, beer, Aunt Emma's baked beans, home made bread, potato salad. Lots of desserts, high angel food cakes.
Grandma had a big garden in that sandy soil. I suppose the rain barrel had to furnish water for the strawberry patch. Big Falls was a bustling village in those days. The big graded school, two Lutheran churches, two grocery stores, Arndt's and Adam's. Even at one time a meat market which burned down. Guy Lein Feed Mill, 3 taverns, Bailey's Garage. A cheese factory. Cemetery ghosts. Sawmill, pond, dam, railroad tracks. Hotel, free shows on Wednesday nights in back of the bank building.
In January 1947 Fred and Bertha celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary at the Village Hall. Mr. Leo Jannusch and his sister, Elizabeth Mavis played his accordian for dancing. All six of their children were in attendance, Emma Beyersdorf, Louie, Elsie Schmidt, Alma Zillmer, Leona Ostermann and Clarence. Many grandchildren and great grandchildren danced and tore around on that village hall floor. Fred and Bertha and their large family had worked for Frank DeVaud on his Dupont farm from 1916 to 1932, from there wandered to Sheboygan before coming back to Big Falls for their final years.
Each Christmas the Zillmers purchased from one of the Marion taverns a 25 pound bag of salted peanuts. We ate and ate and sucked the salt from the shells. The remaining peanuts my Mother gave to Grandpa Fred and he remarked and grumbled that that was all he was good for was to shell peanuts. But he ate his words - my Mother would crush the peanuts with a rolling pin and make a white cake, slather pieces with a powdered sugar frosting and roll in that peanuts Grandpa mumbled about shelling. Those were delicious. Nothing tasted so good as those peanut squares from long ago.
Fred passed away in that house one early Sunday September morning in 1948. Ostermann grandchildren came to live with Bertha then, and attended Marion High School. Bertha lived 15 more years, leaving forever Big Falls in 1961, spending the last years living with her various children.
Both are buried at Roseland Cemetery with five of their six children nearby for all eternity.
The wooden staved rain barrel and peanut squares and the Lembke grandparents are nothing but a pleasant memory of Big Falls in the 1940's.
copyright 2010, Russell and Delores Miller