05 June 2009

The Farm


When I was a kid, we would go visit Grandma and Grandpa at The Farm. To me, it was the family homestead, but it actually came sideways into our family. It began as the Ten Have family farm. We lived around the corner. My great-granduncle Peter worked as a farm hand there for many years. The family Was Harm Ten Have, his wife Margje and daughters Christina, Henrietta and Jane. Jane married and- I think - died young. I did not know anything of her until I had done a lot of research into the family. Hattie and Christina were schoolteachers and stayed living on the family farm.
In 1921, Hattie and Peter were married. Christina continued to live on the farm with them until her death. After the deaths of Hattie and Peter, my grandparents moved to the farm, which is how it became the family farm to me!
I remember picking strawberries out in the fields and asparagus in the yard between the house and the road. There was a water tap out at the end of the walk near the drive. Grandpa rented out fields and barn. At one time someone kept horses there. We would play up in the hayloft, too.
In the house, Grandma would do laundry with a wringer washer in the little room to the right of this picture. There was a bathroom under the stairs with 2 doors, which was just fantastic to us!! It had a cubbyhole for storage which was a great place to hide. We played with the fishing game in the claw-foot tub in there.
Upstairs, there was beautiful organ in one of the bedrooms and an old secretary desk with cubbies. I was afraid of the attic and the storeroom. And there was a wasp nest (or hornets nest) hanging outside one of the windows in my parents room. The floor of the dining room was warped or something, it bulged up under the table. Something strange and spooky anyway!
I loved that house! Don't know if I realized it then. But I was definitely unhappy when Grandma and Grandpa sold it and moved into town (although we had great fun at that house, too!).

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