The big topic of community conversation recently has been the located near Crescent, MO, which now is part of Eureka.
Dr. Stuart acquired what was known as the Brown Farm (as in Brown Shoe Company) and started the castle. During that period, he would drive to the Augustine Farm, where I met him as he viewed his work through field glasses and telescopes as he took pictures of his place across the river. He talked a bit about his hopes at that time. Little did I know then that today I would be writing a blog to remember the Good Old Days.
My blog dated November 5, 1931, referred to the Castle location as I wrote: Eureka, MO 1931 Tornado. It is accessible under that title on the Internet. I wrote that my father and mother rode out the storm at the entrance to the Brown Estate where they were visiting the parents of my oldest brother's wife, as the Edward Holmbergs were the caretakers for Mr. Brown, CEO of Brown Shoe Company, at the time.
My Dad had a relationship with Mr. Brown and Holmberg as that friendship led to him assisting Ed at times in the maintenance and farm activities. I remember him doing the operations on male pigs and calves at different years. Mrs. Holmberg was a great cook, especially Swedish dishes.
Fortunately, I was too young to do much of the work, but over the years I spoke with my brother, Bud, at different times and he always remembered how much work it was to use our horse-driven mower to cut around the various orchard trees and then try to load the blue grass cuttings onto a wagon to attempt to bring some home to the farm.
At that time the great road wasn't there yet, as the old county road went up the hill to the east of the present road and was quite steep. Because there was no brake on our farm wagon, he would put a chain on a rear wheel which made it possible to drive down without the wagon running over the team which had to pull even downhill. The result was a worn spot on the rim, no rubber tires then, which made a whopping noise on each rotation after the chain was removed.
All went well until crossing the Meramec River on the old wood-based bridge as the whopping noise was magnified to the extent that the team ran away and crashed the wagon on the bridge exit in Times Beach. Of course all the hard work of haying was lost.
At the time, all our delivery was by wagon and we encountered the same problem going to the Pevely Farm with straw and hay, so much to the extent that my Dad said no more. So Pevely Farms bought from a dealer in St. Louis, who in turn bought from my Dad. The difference is that Dad would load the bales on a railroad freight car in Eureka, which was then taken by train to Crescent where Pevely Dairy workers would unload them. And my Dad received more money in the deal.
So much for the Good Old Days!
