5/11/2009:
Home Grown: German-Russian Farm Kids Remember
"Working for Another Farm"
Arthur R. Bender
Interviewed: Wishek, ND, 10 August 2006
Born: Wishek, ND, 09 November 1922
In '38 when we had no crop, there was just nothing, so our dad said I found out you could hire out to some people in Lisbon and the surrounding little towns there, to earn a little money. So my older brother was going to go, I begged, I was only 16 I think or it was 15 or 16 ah no let you go too, and let me go too. So he took us up there to Lisbon, dropped us off there at a place where we could get hired. And so I got a job just a mile or two out of Lisbon, my brother got a job further north in another little town, that was not far but maybe 10-15 miles up, so we worked about two weeks and then my brother, somehow, somebody came down and they looked me up at where I worked we hadn't seen each other for two weeks and we talked a little bit finally, said we will work two more weeks and then we will go home. And so we worked there, my boss had a, his father had committed suicide. So my boss was 19 years old or 20 and was running the farm and his mother was there and two sisters. They milked like 16 cows and do you think those sisters would come out and help. He and I got up before sunup in summer and you know that was early. He sent me east to get the cows and down a hill and up. After I brought the cows in to the east door of the barn then the sun came peeking up and you knew it was about 5 o'clock or so. We milked the 16 cows and fed a few pigs and few cattle - calves, then came in and ate and then we went to work and worked like dogs.