The first
thing that enters my head about Chancellor some seventy-five years ago was the
fact that hitching rails for horses were still in place along the outside of
the concrete sidewalks. In the 1930’s, one could expect now and then to see a
team of horses and a farm wagon hitched to the rail. It may be that the reason
I was so impressed with them is because kids could play on them, hanging by
their knees, or doing turnovers, or whatever kids think up. These rails were
removed, probably for some scrap metal drive during World War II.
The city of
Chancellor is located in Turner County in south-eastern South Dakota. It has a
fast-growing population now, but was down to about 300 in those early years. It
was settled in the late 19th century largely by German farmers who
streamed in, not directly from New York, but many of these stayed for a brief
time in Illinois or Iowa, moving to South Dakota possibly because of homestead
possibilities. My great-grandparents Plucker were examples of this; their
homestead farm is located on a creek some tow and a half miles north and one
mile east from town. Turner County is divided up into townships, chancellor
being located in Germantown Township.
The story
goes that the settlers wanted to name their town “Bismarck” after Germany’s
“Iron Chancellor,” just like Bismarck, the capitol of North Dakota. That would
have been confusing enough, but there were other objections to naming the place
after this German war-maker. The railroad folks thought “Calumet” would be a
good substitute. “Nope,” said the citizens, “We’ll call it ‘Chancellor’ and
still honor the tough old German.
Some of the
great old businesses and stores stand out in my memory. First would be
Rabenberg’s blacksmith shop. Rabenberg probably started the business with
shoeing horses, his original main work. I remember him at his hand-turned
forge, whipping up a fiercely hot charcoal fire to heat plowshares red hot; I
believe this heating had something to do with tempering the cutting edge of the
plowshare. Farmers could still bring in their horses for shoes, but that was
not the main part of his business now.
After I got
a bit older I began to be aware of a funny old car, covered with dust, parked
back in the dark innermost parts of this barn-like building. Since the forge
with all its excitement was practically in the barn door entrance, I had
scarcely noticed it before. My dad said it was a 1921 Studebaker, and he
thought it probably had fewer than 15,000 miles on it. He had no idea why old
Rabenberg had preserved it for twenty or more years. It was sold to some
collector or perhaps a museum when the blacksmith shop closed down, some time
probably in the early 1950’s.
Across the
highway was Enno’s gas station, part of the Farmer’s Coop which owned the
station and the grain elevator standing behind and a bit to the side. Enno
Johnson was my dad’s cousin and sang in the Johnson Quartet, the group that
influenced me into singing. The Haines “Men of Note” have their earliest roots
in this quartet.
The Gas
station itself was ordinary enough, with several pumps out in front, an office
and store where you could buy antifreeze, quarts of oil, tire patches and the
like. Beside the office/store were three stalls, big enough for cars and small
trucks. There was a hoist, where repairs could take place, oil changes, tires
repaired, but during the war, almost no new tires were sold. Tires were
strictly rationed, but that meant nothing, if there were no new tires to be
had. Tubes, patches, boots, all were used until you could nearly see the air
through the fabric of the pitifully thin tire.
The most
interesting part was the continuous camaraderie that took place in the office.
There were a few regular participants who were always there, gossiping away, in
Low German, of course. My dad said that these fellows would do their farming
from the breakfast table, telling the older sons, and sometimes the daughters,
too, what had to be done that day in the fields and around the farmyard. Then
they would jump into their Model A’s, and Chevy’s and spend the morning at the
station. Home for noon dinner, and then they could spend the afternoons
pottering about the farm, or napping, or another visit to the gas station.
Saturday nights were important because then more men, not regulars, who could
natter together in Low German, or not, would come in.
Low German
is claimed to be a language of its own, not just a dialect or corruption of
High German, the German of Martin Luther. I think the Low German spoken in
Germantown was adulterated by a few English words. There was a Low German
newspaper printed somewhere in Iowa that I got to see once or twice, and the
written language looked to me like a strange mixture of German, Dutch and
English. It had/has a word order similar to High German, but was not understood
by Germans or Americans.
For the
whole town, Saturday night was the highlight of the week, when Tjaden’s General
Store, Felix’s barber shop, the drug store, nearly every business in town would
be open for customers. There were benches in front of many of these places, and
in good weather you could count on them being filled with husbands, waiting for
their wives, who were in the stores shopping and gossiping. Since this was
before the day of the supermarket where you load your cart yourself and pay at
the check stand, you had to wait for a store employee to get what you wanted,
then pay that same clerk at the hand-operated cash register. An important part
of the equipment was the big roll of stiff wrapping paper, and the huge ball of
string. In a general store like Tjaden’s where you could buy groceries, men’s
overalls, shoes, women’s clothing, denim “chores jackets,” thimbles, thread,
“material” to sew anything, whatever, the paper and string had to wrap up many
different kinds of purchases. (No plastic grocery bags or paper grocery sacks
available.) This took a lot of time, and people like my parents, who had no
phone, were able to keep up with the local news.
When the weather was bad, a good
gathering place, for the men at least, was Felix’s barber shop. There were two
chairs, but seldom was there any barber but Felix. There was usually about a
half-dozen or so men waiting, but not all were waiting for the barber’s
services. They simply came to talk and socialize primarily about farming and
“How much rain did you get at your place?”
The haircuts
were not all that interesting to watch, but the shaves were. Not many of these
gruff old German farmers wanted a lot of fuss on their faces, but two or three
shaves on a Saturday night could happen. Felix used very hot towels on the
face, lather mixed up in a big cup-like container and a straight razor. Felix
would make a big production out of stropping the razor on a wide leather strap
that he had hanging from the back of the barber chair. I have never known what
made the four-inch blade get so sharp, rubbing it against leather. He would
then shave off the lather and the beard with great flourishes like the barber
in the movie, “The Great Dictator.” No one applauded, but I suspect some felt
like it. After the shave or a haircut, there would be a deluge of perfumed
lotions with more hot towels applied to the face and neck, finally a
spectacular brushing of the hair off the shoulders. The anointed person would
get up, pay his sixty cents (yes, 25 for a haircut, 35 for a shave) and leave,
or maybe stay and gossip. Felix would holler “Next!” I don’t think Felix ever
learned to speak Low German, but I’ll bet he understood 90% of it.
Kortemeyer’s
Hardware store was a largish (by 1930’s standards) building. Freddie Kortemeyer
sold every kind of hardware including Case farm implements in a lot behind the
store. Very probably you could have equipped yourself, even as late as 1940,
with all you would ever need for horse farming. Harnesses, wagons, horse-drawn
plows, discs, drags, cultivators, all of it. Antique hunters these days would
go bonkers.
The drug
store, with its wrought-iron ice-cream parlor chairs and tables was more of an
attraction for younger folks. In spite of the ice cream and soft drinks, the
drug store was not the hang-out that the gas station or the barber shop were.
Of course, I was not very interested in the collection of Bayer aspirin, Ipana
tooth-paste, and different cough medicines, so I can only guess at the
old-fashioned remedies that were on sale.
The ball
park, used mostly for softball, was the centerpiece of the Chancellor city
park. Other than the ball diamond, there was not much beyond a few swings and
maybe a children’s slide. For me, the amazing and memorable part was the public
address system. In the days when radios were still rare, a gadget that could
make your voice sound over most of the town was astounding, and as a small boy,
I was easily astounded. Rupert Fowler was the voice that described and
commented on the playing. Rupert Fowler? What kind of a name was that? Not
German, for sure.
For a
“churchy” kind of town, Chancellor had only the Baptist and Dutch Reformed
churches. No Lutherans, surprisingly enough. [Editor’s note: First Reformed Church of Lennox was originally located
east of town with its own cemetery alongside. When another Reformed Church was
started in Lennox, as Second Reformed Church, First Reformed moved to
Chancellor, becoming the First Reformed Church of Chancellor.]
The Presbyterians were out in the
country on land donated by my great-grandfather Plucker. One of my other
“greats,” one Philip Witte, became the first pastor. Previous to any of my
memories, the Baptists had been out in the country, too, next to the cemetery
which is still in the same place. You could see signs of where the church had
been when I was a boy. The Reformed Church struggled on with few members until
after World War II when a number of new people moved into town, and a wonderful
new building was built. The Catholic people, if there were any, (I didn’t know
of any) would have had to attend in Lennox or Parker.
Oh
yes, and there was a saloon. We kids always walked fast past it, and thought it
was quite daring to glance in the door which might have been open on a summer
Saturday evening. It is strange to think, that if I had looked, more than
glanced, I might have seen my very own great uncle, my Sunday School teacher,
Uncle Folkert Poppens, having a beer. I shall never forget that once he stated
in Sunday School, that he thought it was all right for a hard-working man to
have a beer on a Saturday night.
No comments:
Post a Comment