At the risk of being trite and traditional since I have dealt with Veteran’s Day in the past few newsletters of this month I thought I should share with you this account by the late C.B. Kurtz from the Delphi Journal of 1990 entitled “Welcoming Home Our Veterans”.
“I am writing of an event that has always been in my memory of the old days. It took place in the summer of 1919. Carroll County and especially Delphi organized a welcome home celebration to honor our World War One veterans who were lucky enough to return home alive.
I was thirteen years old and had two brothers in the celebration. The third one hadn’t yet been discharged and was at Camp Eustace, Virginia. The two taking part, one a lieutenant and the youngest a corporal, just returned from Bremen, Germany where they had been with the army of occupation.
They formed ranks in the street by the courthouse in full uniform and marched out the former highway towards Pittsburg. A few roads down the road there was a beautiful grassy grove like a park, shaded by giant oak trees. Here the good ladies of the county had long tables set up and a great feast ready. They welcomed their warriors and started serving, and what a feast they served.
The veteran families were welcome also, but we did not eat with them, just visited and enjoyed ourselves. After several hours of pleasure, the soldiers again formed ranks under their commander and marched back to the city square where they were disbanded.
The large frame farmhouse that stood back in that beautiful oak grove caught fire and burnt to the ground in the 1940’s, and the beautiful grove has long disappeared. Those beloved brothers of mine are all dead and gone long ago, including most of their comrades; but that memory stays with me clearly to this day. I am now 74 years old.”
Civil War Veterans Reunion, abt 1900
Mark Alan Smith, Carroll County Historian
Nov 11, 2023
Shucking Hooks and Corn Pickers-
Harvest Time in Carroll County
Mark Alan Smith, Carroll County Historian
Oct. 4, 2023
Now that we are in the season of the year when the leaves turn(and sometime fall) and the frost is on the punkin so to speak, at times our minds turn to harvesting that universal crop in Carroll County(and Indiana) named Corn.
It’s difficult to believe that with today’s behemoth machines which used cost tens of thousands of dollars and new even more at hundreds of thousands that harvesting that universal crop was at one time performed manually with a device known as a “shucking hook” which was placed on the farmer’s hand much as a glove may have been situated with a sharp peg projecting from the device which was used to remove the husks (sometimes called shucks, thus the saying) from the ears.
According to the entry on Corn Husking Contests and related matters in the History of Rural Organizations by John and Doris Peterson, p. 324, “In the age of mechanization, it is hard for a person to realize the amount of hard work and skill required to husk corn by hand. Only the better huskers could average 100 bushels per day, so it was a real accomplishment to husk from 25 to 40 bushels in 80 minutes. Contestants were penalized for leaving ears in the field, and for leaving husks on the ears.
It was an art to grab an ear of corn, remove the husks and silks and throw it in the wagon while other ears were on their way to the wagon. A good husker would keep three ears in the air on the way to the wagon.
Lyons Family Farm