The following article is part of the Diamond Club Member group that began in the January 7, 1943, issue of the Rock County Star Herald. Members of this group consist of persons of age 75 and older.
This article appeared in the April 1, 1943, edition of The Rock County Star Herald.
The term “cost of production” is an expression which brings back memories to Mrs. Mina Carlisle of Battle Plain township, who lives there on a farm with her son, Elmer Pierson. To have received most of production one of those hard years in the ’20s would have seen money in the pockets of the farmers who battled drought and depression at the same time with all the odds against them.
They would have felt they were literally rolling in wealth if they could have had the “cost plus 10 percent,” the economic profit scale of this era, but let Mrs. Carlisle tell you in her own words what was the plight of her father, a farmer in Iowa. She says:
“One year, our wheat crop yielded three bushels per acre. We had sowed one and one-half bushels of seed per acre and had paid $2 a bushel for the seed. Father was sick that year, so we had to hire help at $3 a day, and had to hire some of the grain cut at $1.25 an acre. When we sold the wheat, we received 45 cents a bushel for it, so you can see how much profit we got out of our crop. All we got was the straw, and there wasn’t much of that. Those really were hard times.”
Mrs. Carlisle was born Dec. 25, 1862, in Holmes county, Ohio, the daughter of Martin and Delila VanSwearingen. She moved with her family to Iowa when she was a young girl, and lived in that state until 1921 when she came to Rock county to make her home.
If St. Patrick had driven the snakes out of Ireland he must have chased them into Iowa, because Mrs. Carlisle states there were plenty of them in her community when she was a girl. She recalls that on one occasion, she killed one that measured five feet in length and five inches in diameter. First she tried using a hoe, but when she apparently wasn’t having any success, she used an ax.
She distinctly remembers the blizzard of 1881. The storm lasted three days and three nights, and when it was over, the drifts were even with the eaves of the house. When they wanted to go any place, they had to detour in all directions because of the snow’s great depth. That winter was one of the longest and hardest Mrs. Carlisle ever experienced. As she recalls it now, there were but few days when it was not either snowing or blowing or both. Spring came very late, and all the snow did not thaw away until late in April. They began sowing their wheat on April 27, she recalls, and that was the year they had the small crop.
She recalls she earned her first dollars as a girl doing housework. Her salary was $1.50 per week.
March 29, 1885, she was married at Carroll, Ia., to Albert B. Pierson. They lived on a farm and became the parents of two children, Elmer J. Pierson of near Edgerton and John who died in infancy. Mr. Pierson lost his life in a hunting accident when her son Elmer was 10 years old.
On Dec. 30, 1907, she married C. H. Carlisle, at Manning, Ia., and after her marriage, she lived in Manning where Mr. Carlisle was on the police force. After his death in 1921, she came to Minnesota to live with her son Elmer on the farm near Edgerton. The years she spent in Manning, Mrs. Carlisle states, are the only years of her life that were not spent on a farm.
Mrs. Carlisle has four grandchildren, Louis J. Pierson, Albert B. Pierson, Mrs. Vione Stamman and Bernice Pierson, and three great-grandchildren Gary C. Stamman, son of Mr. and Mrs. Clinton Stamman, and Gail, Janice and Wesley Louis, children of Mr. and Mrs. Louis Pierson.
Mrs. Carlisle’s favorite hobby is piecing quilts and quilting, although she also knits and braids many rag rugs, not only for herself but for her grandchildren and others.
Although she has been hard of hearing since she was nine years old, she has not been handicapped because she has learned to read lip movements. “For this ability I am very thankful,” she says, “as it has enabled me to carry on a good conversation with anyone.”
Of eight children in her father’s family, she and six others are still living. Her brothers and sisters include: Sam VanSwearingen, Happy, Tex.; Elmer Van Swearingen, Spirit Lake, Ia.; Mrs. Lillie Grundmeier, Hines; Mrs. Dicea Wilson, Marshalltown, Ia. and Mrs. Viantha Scheiber, Lake Benton.
Mrs. Carlisle has had good health all her life, and to this and to the fact that she has worked hard, she attributes her long life.
She is a member of the Presbyterian church.
Donations to the Rock County Historical Society can be sent to the Rock County Historical Society, 312 E. Main Street, Luverne, MN 56156.
Mann welcomes correspondence sent to mannmade@iw.net.