A month or so after our wedding a knock came on the door one evening. Fred Knittle came to ask if we would be interested in taking Edson Osborne for life in return for his rundown farm. Edson was sixty-five or more and needed a home. He had been living in a small shanty built for him after his farmhouse burned about 1900. His health was poor and he had no one to keep house and care for him. I hadn't seen the place since the house burned down and it was a mile and a quarter outside of Blandford. Gertrude and I didn't know what to say; we wanted to think it over a few days.
Gertrude Blodgett and I had been married in the fall of 1911 in a double ceremony with her sister, Ethel, and Frank Cook, at the Blodgett home on North Street, Broad Acres, known as the old Stewart Farm. Gertrude was a city girl who had lived a carefree life before moving to Blandford a year earlier. We had met at a dance in town the preceding winter and hit it off together right away. I had no idea what to do for a living to support a family, but I'd always found work so far and gotten along. We had very little money and no place to live, so Father Blodgett had offered to let us stay there through the winter.
We needed a home of our own and a farm would be good, so we went down to look over the Osborne place as soon as we could. The barn was still standing but in terrible shape and looked about ready to collapse. Rail fences were broken down and stone walls had settled and spread until quite low. The cellar hole was in perfect condition, but partially filled with debris from the fire. The fields and mowings had been sadly neglected, all gone to goldenrod and lightning grass. Seeing the shape things were in, it was a tough decision for a young couple to make, but we had no other place to consider. It was a large farm of 160 acres or so, with about 60 acres of mowing, mostly hillsides. There was plenty of lumber as it hadn't been cut for years, and I knew my father would help build us a house. We talked it over and went back for a second look, measured the cellar hole and drew plans for a house. Before we made up our minds I explained to Gertrude all the work there was to do, and told her it would take at least ten years of hard work for both of us. We finally decided to take a chance. Edson and Mr. Boise made out the deed, and Edson came to spend the winter with us at Broadacres. That was the beginning of Breezy Hill Farm in 1912!
There was so much to be done when we took on the old farm. I had only my two hands and no money, but nothing had ever stumped me in my life so far. On the plus side I had a pair of horses and a good supply of tools. It seemed like a chance for the future. Gertrude did not realize the trials ahead as her father had been a prosperous man, but she had faith that I could do it!
The first job was to build a house we could move into by spring. I started cutting logs, driving each day down to the farm. It must have taken four to six weeks to cut enough hemlock for lumber. We cut all the logs in the winter cold spell before drawing them to the mill. Luckily Steve Bodurtha had a sawmill about half a mile away, and also a planer so we could size boards and framing stock there. I had two men to help me, and Gertrude, who had never cooked before marriage, had to pack lunches for us all besides feeding Edson. The weather was often zero or below. We would drive to the old barn and walk through waist deep snow to the woods. The sled tipped over many times going down to cut logs.
As soon as the logs were all cut I let the two men go and hired Joe Frisbie to help draw logs, as I couldn't load them alone. We drew logs for sills and timbers first so Father and my brother, Walter, could start building in that awful cold and wind. We could draw about three loads of logs to the mill each day, and each night hauled home a load of lumber from the mill across South Street. Harry Wyman was drawing logs for Bodurtha so once in a while he gave me $5 toward pay for the horse I'd sold him. In this way we lived, got my logs drawn, the lumber home, and the house built. Joe Frisbie also owed me for a horse so he was willing to help draw logs and sawn lumber. We cut oak for the floors last and hauled it to the kiln in Westfield to dry.
We couldn't clean out the cellar hole before starting to build as it was frozen solid and wouldn't thaw till spring. Everything was so cold and frozen we couldn't level off the walls properly so my father and brother just leveled up the sills. They framed the house just as fast as the lumber arrived. In those days every piece of lumber had to be squared by hand and frozen green hemlock was hard to nail. When it warmed up Mr. Bemis came and laid the brick chimney, and before spring the house was up, shingled, and roofed over, with a piazza along the front and three rooms finished. By the last of April or early May we were ready to move in. The kitchen, pantry, and one bedroom were ready for use, the other rooms left unfinished for now, as the oak for floors and trim was being kiln dried.
There wasn't much to move seven chairs, a table borrowed from Sadie Knittle, a second hand stove, our bed, and a rope bed for Edson. Father had given me $10 for a wedding present with which I bought six dining room chairs. Dishes and bedding appeared from somewhere. I made a wooden dry sink for the kitchen with a hole in one corner for a drain. At first there were no facilities inside the house, no pump, no running water. I don't know how Gertrude stood it with so much work to do and nothing to do with! She never complained all through those years and was always ready to help me outdoors and with the milking. We ate very poorly the first year or so, only in summer when the garden was producing did we eat well.
The first spring there was so much work ahead of me I hardly knew where to start. The most important chore seemed to be to plant all I could. I had to have hay and corn. So I ploughed up all the land our supply of manure would cover, with about three quarters of an acre to potatoes and the rest to corn. The sheep fold hadn't been cleaned out in years, a good source of manure. We had to carry all the water from the spring for the house. Such a lot of work for Gertrude, with our first child due in the fall. Our living that first spring was very poor with no money coming in, but I planted a large garden. We had hens and raised more chickens in the summer. Walter worked on the house every day he could spare, as I still had to work out so the bills would be paid. I started buying calves and heifers of all kinds, sometimes as cheap as fifty cents. By fall I'd accumulated five or six calves and a heifer. Edson's old cow was very wild, wouldn't be tamed, didn't understand what fences were for, and when shut in the barn would go right through the door! I got rid of her pronto. Their feed was poor as I couldn't afford grain. The first winter we had to draw water for the animals until the well was cleaned and filled up again. The spring, when cleaned out, gave us the best tasting water and never went dry again.
I had Mr. White clean the cellar of rubble that first summer, and the walls under the sills all filled in with stones and mortar, so the house now stood on firm foundations. In the fall with the help of a boy I cleaned and washed the well.
At first I'd built temporary brush fences. The next year I bought a ton and a half of barbed wire and a keg of staples and began to remove the hundred year old fences and gradually build new ones. In 1913 also, Walter finished the house inside and I started painting the walls. That was the year the old barn fell while we were trying to lower it. I had planned to lower and repair it to store hay in. My brother, Walter, and cousins, Harry and Ernest Wyman, tried to lower it. The barn was perhaps one hundred years old, and like the one-horse shay had had all it could take. I wasn't there to see, but after jacking it up and cutting the posts, it gave just a shiver, they said, and flattened on the ground. Luckily no one was hurt. It was quite a surprise when I got home that night. The very next day I staked out a new one and told them what to build. They had the barn up and roofed in a week or so, using as much of the old timbers and lumber as they could. I don’t know where I got the money to pay them, but did somehow before the end of summer. The new barn was more convenient and large enough to house all the animals and their feed. About 1915 I bought a silo, 10 by 26 feet high, which Harry helped me set up beside the barn for my corn.
By the time our second daughter was born in 1914, the house was about finished inside, painted and papered. The Blodgetts had sold Broadacres, and passed on to us lovely antiques to help furnish our home. Also by this time Gertrude was an old hand at canning and preserving. At first we churned cream into butter and took it to Russell where they would take our butter in trade for grain and groceries which were cheaper at the store there. I was delivering mail then and taking milk to Westfield to the dairy.
It took us about three years to get the house, barn, shed, and fences built, and acquire enough cows to support us. At first we had to cut hay from other mowings to feed our stock, but after a few years and with the silo for corn, we had hay and feed enough for all our animals.
Inside the house Gertrude had no facilities in the early years but later we had a good sink and pump, and electric lights from batteries in the cellar, a large hot air furnace, and a new kitchen stove. I had built fences around the pastures and the brush and trees had been trimmed back. All but a few acres had been ploughed and seeded. There was plenty of fertilizer from the cows and all kinds of machinery to make the work easier. By 1919 or 1920 I'd bought a large separator, riding plough, cultivator, corn planter, and a machine to hoe potatoes.
By World War I we had most of our needs taken care of. We raised barley to feed stock and had enough flour milled to last through the winter, as wheat flour and grain were scarce during the War. You had to mix barley flour with a little wheat flour for baking bread. In those war times you had to use what you had and make do. Sugar was scarce everywhere which spurred me into making maple sirup and sugar in spite of the work involved. I made 80-90 gallons a year and we used it in everything. The milk cows provided us a living and each year we could sell a few calves. We were out of debt and had money for taxes.
I built an ice house and milk house near the barn, as I was producing more milk than Casey could use some of the time. Selling 100 quarts for about 10 cents a quart, hauling it to Westfield each morning early before going to work made for very long days. I sold 35% cream to the Cooperative Plant for a long time. Our milk was tested each month by the Hampden County man, and I got the highest test of any cows in town. But no matter how much I sold our produce for, things never seemed to come out even at both ends! Grain and fertilizer costs were high, and if you had lots of potatoes to sell, so did everyone else that year! Pigs cost more to raise than the stores would pay.
By 1920 my barn was full of good cows and hay. I'd bought a bull down near Boston and our life changed for the better, as his calves brought a good price and were in great demand. By then we were eating very well. I would sometimes trade calves for hind-quarters of beef. I was planting nearly ten acres each year, seeding down some and planting two acres of potatoes and the rest to corn. We would raise three pigs to eat in summer and fall, and had a hundred chickens, more than we could use ourselves. We didn't have too much money, but ate well off the land.
I was voted in as Selectman in 1923 and those two years in office were hard, as looking after the roads and the farm work didn't go together very well. I had bought a pair of heavy horses that weighed 1600 pounds each. They were dappled gray, could move anything, and I felt like a king driving them.
At times life had seemed like a nightmare at first on the farm, and sometimes I was ready to give up in despair but was determined to hang on for the good life my wife and children could have there. Those four children rode horses and hayloads, had fields to roam in, berries to pick, brooks and shady dells to play and picnic in. In the winter they coasted on the icy crust. By 1925 the farm was better than ever, but my arm gave out from an early baseball injury and we had to sell the farm.
Looking back over my long life, the years I got the most joy out of living were those working on my farm and getting it in shape. I knew I was accomplishing something worthwhile. It showed the folks around what a penniless man could do, bringing a worn out farm back to life agin. It was all hard work, but work I liked to do and I could see it all change for the better. I never minded work and time was always too short for me. I could never get enough done in one day to please myself. I'm so glad I accomplished what I set out to do and was able to finally make the farm pay. As I look back over those first years of married life a great deal of credit goes to Gertrude, my city born wife. Without her help it wouldn't have been possible.
Gertrude Blodgett and I had been married in the fall of 1911 in a double ceremony with her sister, Ethel, and Frank Cook, at the Blodgett home on North Street, Broad Acres, known as the old Stewart Farm. Gertrude was a city girl who had lived a carefree life before moving to Blandford a year earlier. We had met at a dance in town the preceding winter and hit it off together right away. I had no idea what to do for a living to support a family, but I'd always found work so far and gotten along. We had very little money and no place to live, so Father Blodgett had offered to let us stay there through the winter.
We needed a home of our own and a farm would be good, so we went down to look over the Osborne place as soon as we could. The barn was still standing but in terrible shape and looked about ready to collapse. Rail fences were broken down and stone walls had settled and spread until quite low. The cellar hole was in perfect condition, but partially filled with debris from the fire. The fields and mowings had been sadly neglected, all gone to goldenrod and lightning grass. Seeing the shape things were in, it was a tough decision for a young couple to make, but we had no other place to consider. It was a large farm of 160 acres or so, with about 60 acres of mowing, mostly hillsides. There was plenty of lumber as it hadn't been cut for years, and I knew my father would help build us a house. We talked it over and went back for a second look, measured the cellar hole and drew plans for a house. Before we made up our minds I explained to Gertrude all the work there was to do, and told her it would take at least ten years of hard work for both of us. We finally decided to take a chance. Edson and Mr. Boise made out the deed, and Edson came to spend the winter with us at Broadacres. That was the beginning of Breezy Hill Farm in 1912!
There was so much to be done when we took on the old farm. I had only my two hands and no money, but nothing had ever stumped me in my life so far. On the plus side I had a pair of horses and a good supply of tools. It seemed like a chance for the future. Gertrude did not realize the trials ahead as her father had been a prosperous man, but she had faith that I could do it!
The first job was to build a house we could move into by spring. I started cutting logs, driving each day down to the farm. It must have taken four to six weeks to cut enough hemlock for lumber. We cut all the logs in the winter cold spell before drawing them to the mill. Luckily Steve Bodurtha had a sawmill about half a mile away, and also a planer so we could size boards and framing stock there. I had two men to help me, and Gertrude, who had never cooked before marriage, had to pack lunches for us all besides feeding Edson. The weather was often zero or below. We would drive to the old barn and walk through waist deep snow to the woods. The sled tipped over many times going down to cut logs.
As soon as the logs were all cut I let the two men go and hired Joe Frisbie to help draw logs, as I couldn't load them alone. We drew logs for sills and timbers first so Father and my brother, Walter, could start building in that awful cold and wind. We could draw about three loads of logs to the mill each day, and each night hauled home a load of lumber from the mill across South Street. Harry Wyman was drawing logs for Bodurtha so once in a while he gave me $5 toward pay for the horse I'd sold him. In this way we lived, got my logs drawn, the lumber home, and the house built. Joe Frisbie also owed me for a horse so he was willing to help draw logs and sawn lumber. We cut oak for the floors last and hauled it to the kiln in Westfield to dry.
We couldn't clean out the cellar hole before starting to build as it was frozen solid and wouldn't thaw till spring. Everything was so cold and frozen we couldn't level off the walls properly so my father and brother just leveled up the sills. They framed the house just as fast as the lumber arrived. In those days every piece of lumber had to be squared by hand and frozen green hemlock was hard to nail. When it warmed up Mr. Bemis came and laid the brick chimney, and before spring the house was up, shingled, and roofed over, with a piazza along the front and three rooms finished. By the last of April or early May we were ready to move in. The kitchen, pantry, and one bedroom were ready for use, the other rooms left unfinished for now, as the oak for floors and trim was being kiln dried.
There wasn't much to move seven chairs, a table borrowed from Sadie Knittle, a second hand stove, our bed, and a rope bed for Edson. Father had given me $10 for a wedding present with which I bought six dining room chairs. Dishes and bedding appeared from somewhere. I made a wooden dry sink for the kitchen with a hole in one corner for a drain. At first there were no facilities inside the house, no pump, no running water. I don't know how Gertrude stood it with so much work to do and nothing to do with! She never complained all through those years and was always ready to help me outdoors and with the milking. We ate very poorly the first year or so, only in summer when the garden was producing did we eat well.
The first spring there was so much work ahead of me I hardly knew where to start. The most important chore seemed to be to plant all I could. I had to have hay and corn. So I ploughed up all the land our supply of manure would cover, with about three quarters of an acre to potatoes and the rest to corn. The sheep fold hadn't been cleaned out in years, a good source of manure. We had to carry all the water from the spring for the house. Such a lot of work for Gertrude, with our first child due in the fall. Our living that first spring was very poor with no money coming in, but I planted a large garden. We had hens and raised more chickens in the summer. Walter worked on the house every day he could spare, as I still had to work out so the bills would be paid. I started buying calves and heifers of all kinds, sometimes as cheap as fifty cents. By fall I'd accumulated five or six calves and a heifer. Edson's old cow was very wild, wouldn't be tamed, didn't understand what fences were for, and when shut in the barn would go right through the door! I got rid of her pronto. Their feed was poor as I couldn't afford grain. The first winter we had to draw water for the animals until the well was cleaned and filled up again. The spring, when cleaned out, gave us the best tasting water and never went dry again.
I had Mr. White clean the cellar of rubble that first summer, and the walls under the sills all filled in with stones and mortar, so the house now stood on firm foundations. In the fall with the help of a boy I cleaned and washed the well.
At first I'd built temporary brush fences. The next year I bought a ton and a half of barbed wire and a keg of staples and began to remove the hundred year old fences and gradually build new ones. In 1913 also, Walter finished the house inside and I started painting the walls. That was the year the old barn fell while we were trying to lower it. I had planned to lower and repair it to store hay in. My brother, Walter, and cousins, Harry and Ernest Wyman, tried to lower it. The barn was perhaps one hundred years old, and like the one-horse shay had had all it could take. I wasn't there to see, but after jacking it up and cutting the posts, it gave just a shiver, they said, and flattened on the ground. Luckily no one was hurt. It was quite a surprise when I got home that night. The very next day I staked out a new one and told them what to build. They had the barn up and roofed in a week or so, using as much of the old timbers and lumber as they could. I don’t know where I got the money to pay them, but did somehow before the end of summer. The new barn was more convenient and large enough to house all the animals and their feed. About 1915 I bought a silo, 10 by 26 feet high, which Harry helped me set up beside the barn for my corn.
By the time our second daughter was born in 1914, the house was about finished inside, painted and papered. The Blodgetts had sold Broadacres, and passed on to us lovely antiques to help furnish our home. Also by this time Gertrude was an old hand at canning and preserving. At first we churned cream into butter and took it to Russell where they would take our butter in trade for grain and groceries which were cheaper at the store there. I was delivering mail then and taking milk to Westfield to the dairy.
It took us about three years to get the house, barn, shed, and fences built, and acquire enough cows to support us. At first we had to cut hay from other mowings to feed our stock, but after a few years and with the silo for corn, we had hay and feed enough for all our animals.
Inside the house Gertrude had no facilities in the early years but later we had a good sink and pump, and electric lights from batteries in the cellar, a large hot air furnace, and a new kitchen stove. I had built fences around the pastures and the brush and trees had been trimmed back. All but a few acres had been ploughed and seeded. There was plenty of fertilizer from the cows and all kinds of machinery to make the work easier. By 1919 or 1920 I'd bought a large separator, riding plough, cultivator, corn planter, and a machine to hoe potatoes.
By World War I we had most of our needs taken care of. We raised barley to feed stock and had enough flour milled to last through the winter, as wheat flour and grain were scarce during the War. You had to mix barley flour with a little wheat flour for baking bread. In those war times you had to use what you had and make do. Sugar was scarce everywhere which spurred me into making maple sirup and sugar in spite of the work involved. I made 80-90 gallons a year and we used it in everything. The milk cows provided us a living and each year we could sell a few calves. We were out of debt and had money for taxes.
I built an ice house and milk house near the barn, as I was producing more milk than Casey could use some of the time. Selling 100 quarts for about 10 cents a quart, hauling it to Westfield each morning early before going to work made for very long days. I sold 35% cream to the Cooperative Plant for a long time. Our milk was tested each month by the Hampden County man, and I got the highest test of any cows in town. But no matter how much I sold our produce for, things never seemed to come out even at both ends! Grain and fertilizer costs were high, and if you had lots of potatoes to sell, so did everyone else that year! Pigs cost more to raise than the stores would pay.
By 1920 my barn was full of good cows and hay. I'd bought a bull down near Boston and our life changed for the better, as his calves brought a good price and were in great demand. By then we were eating very well. I would sometimes trade calves for hind-quarters of beef. I was planting nearly ten acres each year, seeding down some and planting two acres of potatoes and the rest to corn. We would raise three pigs to eat in summer and fall, and had a hundred chickens, more than we could use ourselves. We didn't have too much money, but ate well off the land.
I was voted in as Selectman in 1923 and those two years in office were hard, as looking after the roads and the farm work didn't go together very well. I had bought a pair of heavy horses that weighed 1600 pounds each. They were dappled gray, could move anything, and I felt like a king driving them.
At times life had seemed like a nightmare at first on the farm, and sometimes I was ready to give up in despair but was determined to hang on for the good life my wife and children could have there. Those four children rode horses and hayloads, had fields to roam in, berries to pick, brooks and shady dells to play and picnic in. In the winter they coasted on the icy crust. By 1925 the farm was better than ever, but my arm gave out from an early baseball injury and we had to sell the farm.
Looking back over my long life, the years I got the most joy out of living were those working on my farm and getting it in shape. I knew I was accomplishing something worthwhile. It showed the folks around what a penniless man could do, bringing a worn out farm back to life agin. It was all hard work, but work I liked to do and I could see it all change for the better. I never minded work and time was always too short for me. I could never get enough done in one day to please myself. I'm so glad I accomplished what I set out to do and was able to finally make the farm pay. As I look back over those first years of married life a great deal of credit goes to Gertrude, my city born wife. Without her help it wouldn't have been possible.
