What I Really Threw Away Today

 Well, I had to throw away my measuring cups today.   

Besides being measuring cups I actually liked, these were the first ones I owned when I initially set up housekeeping at the age of 18.  It's quite amazing that they lasted this long - they were still structurally fine but the silver stuff on the inside was getting flaky and corroded.  But these cups were more than just measuring cups.

They are following other vintage kitchen gadgets into the landfill.  The old double boiler, and the electric frying pan with the leg that kept breaking off...  That frying pan... the leg would break off and Grandpa would glue it, and it would break off again, over and over, until Grandpa put a couple of screws in it.  I remember him saying that last fix would outlast the frying pan, and he was right about that.  All of these items, and more, were from my first little house.  Bit by bit, my grandparents helped me get that little place furnished and functional.  They went through their house and gave me furniture they weren't using, went to estate sales where they got me a bed, a vintage stove and a washing machine, and drove to endless rummage sales where kitchen gadgets like the double boiler and the measuring cups (along with things I could not identify) came from.  As I was moving in to that little house I'd walk in the door and find something that hadn't been there the last time.  I would have been up the proverbial creek without them and using these little kitchen items over the last half century always made me feel just a little bit closer to them.  

I think I'm down to one special kitchen item left, and that is her biscuit cutter which I treasure because that was actually hers and used for years and years.  Silly, yes.  But every time I used one of these old items I was reminded that I was deeply loved by those two incredible people, and so much that they did all that for me at their own expense (on a fixed income).  So they were more than measuring cups to me.  But time marches on. 

The House in Princeville

What follows is another sketch from my great-grandmother's (Elvirta Graves Knutz) book of sketches.  She sketched many of the homes she had lived in over the years - from her first home (below) to the last farm they lived on.  

This home, built by her father Tom Graves, was located a short distance northwest of Princeville, Illinois (see map) on Section 3 of Princeville township, the south half of the southeast quarter.  The land was given to Tom by his father, William Graves, who left an 80-acre farm to each of his children, most of these farms in the same township.  His three daughters married and stayed in the area; his son Simon sold his farm and moved to Nebraska, son Austin sold and moved to Minnesota, son Tom sold and went over the county line to Stark county before moving his family to South Dakota.  The one remaining son, Oscar, purchased some of his siblings' farms and eventually his father's, and remained in Princeville township.

The sketch below was her home from birth until age 11 when the family moved to Stark County.  Below that, a photo of the house with the family in front of it.

The Tom and Nettie (Lair) Graves family, from left: Lulu, Maude, Delbert, Elvirta, Nettie and Tom.

The location of the home, northwest of Princeville, Illinois, is outlined in red.  This map is from 1896 - William Graves owned the land to the north, E. O. Graves (Tom's brother Oscar) owned the land to the north of that; east of that M. M. Cox (Tom's sister Madeline) owned that land and to the north of that A. E. Graves (Tom's brother Austin) had his farm.  Sarah Cox's land (another sister) was located in Section 4, and sister Cynthia Evans' land was in Section 9.  Brother Simon had sold his land and relocated by 1885.

The History of a House

It was spring of 1917 when Will and Elvirta Knutz and their two little boys moved to their farm southwest of Huron, South Dakota, on the Virgil Road.  Many things happened on that farm - most notably it was where their son Bill met the love of his life, Lillian Christensen, who lived on a farm around the corner.  The Knutz family moved to the farm in March and were able to purchase it in June - a big step for the young family.  

Life must have been lonely - busy, but lonely - for Virta.  But it was under these circumstances that her creativity came out.  She wrote about her life, the events she witnessed, and her children.  She drew pencil sketches as well which recorded their family's history.  And that leads us to the history of this house.  Their home.  Their dream, and the death of that dream exactly eight years later.

Above is a sketch of the house, done by Virta, and unfortunately undated.  This, along with sketches of their other homes were done on the back pages of an autograph album with the earliest entry in 1904.  The last of the house sketches was from their home they move to in 1930, their last farm before moving to town in 1958. 

Above, Virta is pictured in their neat, tidy home with her two sons, Howard (left) and Bill (then called "Willie.") In this photo, she would have been pregnant with their third child, Richard. 

Above, Virta with Howard and Bill.

Below, Will enjoys a quiet evening with his sons.

The 1920s had set the stage for what was to come in the Great Depression.  Volatile farm prices, drought, locus infiltrations... it all took its toll.  In March of 1925, Will and Virta lost their farm and the life they'd built there.  After that, they lived in a series of rented farms throughout the area.

In the early 2000s, I was in Huron and decided to look for the old house that was such an important part of their lives.  It sat back off the road quite aways, the path to it overgrown with weeds and heavy brush.  The beautiful trees that once provided the family with welcome shade were overgrown and half-dead, almost hiding the structure behind them.  The house itself was rife with rotting wood and unstable flooring, the door partially off its hinges, the interior hit hard by vandals.  I stepped inside and took a look around and noted the small size of the front room compared to what we're used to today.  By the time the Knutz family was forced to move to another farm, they were a family of six and imagining them in that space was a little overwhelming.  Yes, it was small - but it was theirs.  Until it wasn't.

Above - the Knutz farm as it was in the early 2000s.

In walking away from the deteriorating house and taking one long look back, I could almost see Virta's pretty curtains in the windows, with her standing there waving goodbye as was her habit when her visitors left.  

While losing their farm on the Virgil Road must have been devastating, and the hard situation of having to move to several new, rented farms in the next few years, the story does have a happy ending.  In 1929 they were able to buy a new farm fairly close to their old neighbors and friends.  While times were still financially challenging through the Depression, they were able to keep their farm until they retired in 1958 and moved to town.