A Gift from My Daddy.......

Almost sixty years ago this summer (about fifty six years ago to be precise) I received a WONDERFUL gift from my daddy.   He took me along......to Clearmont to have shoes put on his Morgan mare, Lady.

I was a really horse crazy little girl.  I ate, slept , BREATHED horses.  I remember sitting on the front step of the house when I was three going on four and Daddy asked me what I wanted for my birthday and I remember telling him.  I NEED a pony.  Not I wanted a pony, not I would like to have a pony but I NEED a pony.   I asked every year and for my sixth birthday I got:

Heidi.  She was my best friend.

I think I was six turning seven that summer, maybe a year older.  And Daddy looked at me as I got into the truck and he said "I want you to remember today.  You won't see this anywhere else.  It's like stepping back one hundred years.  I'm worried you are too young to remember it well but I want you to see this and remember it."

And was it ever something to see.   He took me to Reigel's Blacksmith Shop  (link to story about shop) go to gallery to see photos.

When we pulled up to the shop, the doors were wide open.  It had a horsey, smokey, metallic atmosphere and it was dark inside.  There were no other horses there, just us and our one horse.

                                                The Clearmont Iowa Blacksmith Shop 

Interior of Clearmont Blacksmith Shop with blacksmith tools on the bench

Both From Clermontia.org website gallery

There were rings in the bricks all along the one wall and the blacksmith told Daddy to tie Lady to one of the rings. 

The Smithy by John Sargent Noble

I don't remember the blacksmith as a tall man but he was a Powerfully built man with Big muscular arms, bald head, and a leather apron.  

A painting of Burkhard Riegel who ran the shop from 1931 to 1967.

From Clermontia.org website gallery

I remember him holding a hammer in his big hands and there was a circular brick 'firepit' with a hood over it.  It was rigged up to a big bellows that he could 'pump' the fire up with.  First the blacksmith (who I now know was Mr. Riegel) trimmed each hoof and then took a horseshoe off a wall, which had hundreds of shoes hanging in rows on it)  and measured it on the newly trimmed hoof.  Lady was a perfect lady during the process and did not give him any fuss. Then he took the shoe over to the forge.

Charles Grant Beauregard "The Blacksmith"

He pumped up the fire and heated the shoe till it glowed red hot and then shaped it to exactly the shape of the hoof.  The shoe would still be hot when he put on the horses' hoof and it would sizzle.  I asked Daddy if it hurt the horse but he said she didn't feel it.  

Bellows for a forge

Daddy, I wasn't too young.  I remember EVERYTHING, how it looked, how it smelled, the bricks, the shop, the smithy.   It was one of the greatest gifts you ever gave me.   And thank you to Mr. Riegel for explaining what he was doing and letting a small young girl watch him at his craft.

Sometimes very special gifts come in surprising packages.

If you are ever near Clearmont, Iowa, you must stop.  I know I will.  I would love to see it again.  I got to go again one other time with Daddy a year later but I've never been back since.

                                              Horse and Buggy Days by Paul Defletson

The Wisconsin Oleo War

I saw a post on facebook the other day claiming oleomargine was originally manufactured to feed turkeys; and when it was discovered it actually killed the turkeys, it was then manufactured for human consumption.
I couldn't find where it killed turkeys but I did discover that to my surprise, Oleo isn't a new 20th century product, originating clear back to Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte III  who offered a reward to anyone who could invent a tasty substitute for butter.  Apparently even in the 19th Century people though real butter was expensive. Click HERE for the history of oleomargarine on Wilkipedia.

What I do know is my mother was involved in the Oleo Wars in the 1950's.  Yes, my own quiet sweet Mother was a Butter Rebel.   Although we lived in Iowa, we crossed the Mississippi River over to Prarie Du Chein, Wisconsin to shop at the Piggly Wiggly. (remember, in previous genealogy posts my mother's family were French-Canadians who came down the Mississippi River)  I think mother thought the Piggly Wiggly was much cheaper except for...............

Butter!  You HAD to buy Butter in Wisconsin, as oleo margarine was outlawed.  Apparently the dairy industry in the 1950's had a HUGE clout in the policies of Wisconsin and clamoring housewives be damned.

So Mom would pile us into the car and head the car for the short drive to Prairie Du Chein.  When we got to Marquette where the bridge over began, as you went up the incline right before the actual bridge started, there was a Mom & Pop grocery store. 

Main Street of Marquette,Iowa.  If you look above the shorter building, you can see the guard rails on the approach to the old bridge my Mom used to take to drive to the Piggly Wiggly.  The bridge has since been replaced so I think this is the now the approach to nowhere.

The store had a huge sign (up on the bluff over it if I remember right but I was pretty little but apparently old enough to read) that said "LAST CHANCE FOR OLEO" and in much smaller letters under that "Green Stamps".    Mom was always careful to stop at this store AFTER the trip to the new, modern, huge (and very small by today's standards) Piggly Wiggly in the Butter State.  Years later I came across a partially filled book of green stamps from this store but I don't know what happened to it.  I also don't remember what my Mom redeemed her green stamps for.  Probably a gravy boat or something!

So Mom never bought butter in Wisconsin and we always stopped for Oleo in Marquette and whatever else she thought was cheaper on the Iowa side of the river.  I do remember the oleo was white and it came with a coloring packet you stirred into to make it look like butter.

I dunno; maybe it did kill those turkeys.