The Manchaug Chicken Mill

Originally Published November 18, 2015 by Steve LeClaire

This year marked the 40th anniversary of one of Manchaug’s milestone events. I missed writing about it by a couple of months, but residents of Manchaug my age and older will certainly remember September of 1975. But let me give you a little background first.

Most people know that Manchaug is a mill village in Sutton’s southwest corner. Manchaug Pond & Stevens pond flow into the Mumford River and provide an endless supply of water power for the mills that sprang up along the streams. Robert Knight had been producing textiles in Providence, Rhode Island since before the Civil War in 1851, and the following year formed B.B. & R. Knight with his brother Benjamin Brayon Knight. Together they looked north, up river and across the border into Massachusetts. They decided to invest in the area we know today as the mill village of Manchaug. Together they began building the huge granite mills. Beginning in 1871, B.B. & R Knight produced cloth with its trademark Fruit of the Loom labels in Manchaug. The Knights grew to own and control over 20 mills in Rhode Island and Massachusetts. Over 400,000 spindles on over 10,000 looms. The Manchaug company boasted 52,000 spindles at one time. Only the operations in Natick, Rhode Island had more – 86,000. The Knights employed over 7000 workers. By Robert Knight’s death in 1912, the New York Times listed him as the largest cotton manufacturer in the world. Not amongst the largest, the largest. A huge company, even by today’s standards.

French Canadian immigrant workers came between 1870 and 1900 and provided much of the labor for the mills. They settled in the many mill houses built by the Knights, in what would become informally known even into modern times as ‘Frog Village’. Many of the descendants of these early workers still live in town and are amongst its most prominent citizens.

You can read about the history of the Knight family in the History of Providence County, and in various textile histories. B. B. Knight died in 1898, and Robert in 1912 but in a nutshell the mill changed hands several times between 1927 and 1948 during which time it produced woolen material, including blankets for the US army. The textile industry died off in New England during the Great Depression, and not long thereafter as mills headed south and then overseas in search of cheaper labor.

Only the “number one” mill still stands, along with the mill store and some other smaller buildings.

The “number two” mill, a long low wooden edifice at the intersection of Putnam Hill Road and Manchuag Road was destroyed by the flood of 1936, and finished off completely by the hurricane of 1938.

It’s the “number three” mill that had the most interesting life. In 1948, the 360 foot long, four story granite hulk became “Buster’s Egg Farm”. Lionel ‘Buster’ Griese of Brookfield bought the building from the Hayward Schuster Woolen Mills of Douglas. With the mill machinery removed and the windows covered with chicken wire, he moved in some 80,000 chickens and waited for the eggs to come to make him rich. I don’t know how wealthy he became, but Buster’s peddled eggs from Manchaug for the next 25 years.

When I was little I remember riding through Manchaug with my mother and we always asked her to drive up Manchaug Road so we could look at the chickens. In the summer, the mill windows would be open and you could see, hear and smell the chickens. It was really a sight to behold. Even driving by it was overpowering. The stink of ammonia filled one’s nostrils, and the steady peep-peep-peep of 80,000 birds filled the air. I’m sure the folks who lived across the street on First, Second and Third Street suffered because of it. Elementary school kids had this distraction literally across the street from the Manchaug Schoolhouse. Humid summer days in Manchaug must have been brutal.

I was only in Buster’s Egg Farm once that I remember, probably in about 1971. While a junior high student, I became friendly with classmate Mark Zuidema who lived in Manchaug, right across the street from the number three mill. I remember taking the bus to his house one day after school, to play for the afternoon. I never rode the bus since I always walked to school in Sutton Center. The bus dropped us off almost in the parking lot of the chicken mill. Mark told me his mother ( I think it was his mother ) worked in the sizing room and that he had to go up and see her before we could adjourn to his house. I was excited but apprehensive that I was going to get to go into the chicken mill. Mark walked right in with me in tow like he owned the place. We went in through a door in the bottom of the huge clock tower. Nobody asked who we were or what we were doing. I guess that ‘Buster’ was used to the children of his employees checking in after school. I remember reading someplace that he employed about twenty five to thirty people.

Rows and rows of white chickens sat in cages, stacked from floor to ceiling. Feathers everywhere. And stink. It was overpowering. Sugar cane was used for bedding, and sawdust too. There were wide wooden stairs, and we went up a flight or two. More chickens. I’d never seen so many. As big as the mill was, it seemed claustrophobic inside. We went up to the top floor of the clock tower, and looked out the open doors to the vista of Manchaug village. We seemed so high up. There was no safety rail, no security, certainly no OSHA. Just me and the ground below. Mark pointed out his house across the street. Being in a mill, in a mill village was quite a different experience for me, having grown up in Sutton Center where there were only houses.

Mark took me in to meet his mother who worked sorting eggs. Row upon row of eggs were passed through some sort of conveyor where a light was shown through the eggs - testing for fertility perhaps? - and through some sort of sizing mechanism for regular, large and extra- large eggs. I wish I could remember more. I’d love to hear a first- hand account from someone who worked there of how the whole chicken operations really worked. Where did all the manure end up? Were the eggs refrigerated?

Buster sold his business to Colchester Egg Farm of Connecticut in 1973. Colchester owned it less than two years before the Great Fire.

The Great Manchaug Chicken Mill Fire happened on the night of September 3rd, 1975. The building had quietly witnessed its 100th anniversary the year before, without any fanfare or acknowledgement. That particular Wednesday evening in September was reasonably warm and clear as I recall. I’d recently joined the fire department as I’d just turned sixteen. I had a learner’s permit, but didn’t yet have my driver’s license. My mother ( my mother!) had to drive me to the fire when we heard the alarm sound. The first alarm came in about 6:45pm. We drove down Putnam Hill Road, and as we crested the hill where the Blackstone National Golf Course is now, we saw the entire skyline to the south engulfed in a strange orange glow. As we got further down the road and past Vern’s restaurant and Tucker Pond, we could see real walls of flame leaping high in the air. Huge sparks and cinders rose in the heat above the smoke. By 7:00pm in early fall, it was dark enough to make the glow stand out in an eerie preview of hell. My mother looked at me, quite worried for my safety. She reluctantly left me off with an admonishment to be careful.

I sprinted up Manchaug road, looking for familiar faces from the fire department. Many of the Manchaug company were already working, unrolling hoses. Steve Frieswick, Albert Bruno, and Deputy Chief Henry Plante. I asked the first fireman I saw what to do. “Find your company” was all he said as he ran past. My training to that point had consisted of unrolling hose, rolling up hose, and hanging on to the back of the fire truck without falling off.

Cinders large and small landed everywhere in Satan’s hailstorm. Neighborhood residents appeared on the hill across the street, their hands to their mouths and eyes wide in shock. Window screens had fallen loose and chickens – on fire - flew from the open windows. All too often, burning chickens rose in flight, died in mid- air, and came crashing to the ground with a thud. It was horrific. Most of the chickens must have died quickly in their cages, but many somehow got loose and ran through the neighborhood. Their singed bodies and bare featherless wings flapped grotesquely. My stomach turned, and knotted with fear.

Eventually, department Captain John Peterson came by and told me to hold onto a two inch hose behind another man, as we directed a curtain of water to create a barrier to a home next door. We had all we could do to hang on to the high pressured nozzle and keep control. The heat was intense.

The fire raged through the night. My wrist watch read midnight. Three am. The flames still roared into the air as portions of the huge granite walls tumbled to the ground. Trucks and equipment came from Northbridge, Uxbridge and Millbury and beyond. Sutton’s seventy year old Fire Chief Ellery “Bucky” Smith directed the offense. As the sun rose over the number one mill to the east the fire finally fell under control. I’d never been so tired. I grabbed a quick donut from a canteen truck that had been set up back at the intersection of Putnam Hill Rd and Manchaug Rd, and then quickly went back to my post. Thousands upon thousands of gallons of water were pumped from the Mumford River.

It was obvious that the fire would cause a total loss. The building was gutted. During the night we watched floor after floor collapse in on themselves, yet major portions of the granite walls still stood. 75 years of mill oil and lubricants, topped with 25 years of chicken manure, sawdust and feathers on top of huge hardwood beams and sturdy planks made for ready tinder to fuel such a raging fire. We waged a defensive war to contain sparks and protect the neighborhood, not an offensive to try to save the mill building. That was hopeless.

A huge crane from Leo Construction Company of Webster arrived Thursday afternoon and set up to begin demolishing the building. By mid-afternoon the sun was high in the clear September sky. I remember we made a single loop with the hose on top of itself; the weight of the water pressure at the spot where the hose crossed held in place with a few chunks of granite. By angling the nozzle so that it sprayed in through the open windows, we didn’t have to man-handle the hose. One of the older fire fighters explained “that’s how you gain an extra man”. The hose sat by itself, and poured water on the steaming pile of ash.

I remember another firefighter and I climbed up on top of one of the fire trucks, and sat in the coils of inch and an eighth forestry hose coiled on top. That comfortable perch provided a front row seat to watch the crane start to knock down the huge clock tower. The wrecking ball swung, and 100 years of granite history toppled to the ground. With the warm sun on my face, and long night of hard work behind me, I quickly fell asleep. The department was there for several days cleaning up, dousing hot spots and untangling the miles of fire hoses that had been laid out.

And then the rats came. If they’d been living in the basement of the mill, they somehow escaped the fire to come back. If they’d been living in the woods, they smelled the stench of 80,000 dead and Bar-B-Q’d chicken carcasses and thought they’d arrived at rat heaven. The debris inside the charred granite walls crawled with a life of its own as the vermin danced over the warm ashes, feasting on the dead. Students from Manchaug were given the day off from school, as there was still plenty to be done in the village. Manchaug Road was still closed. Power had been disconnected. There was ash to be cleaned off of cars as well as a few live chickens to be caught in neighborhoods. Ash and debris that had floated downstream had to be hauled from the Mumford River. Eventually the town purchased several tons of lime to spread over the site to stop the rotting. The site was eventually bulldozed over and capped, like a landfill. Many of the huge granite blocks were salvaged, but I don’t know where they went.

The site was vacant for several years, a chain link fence keeping out the tresspassers. In an ironic turn of events, the Town obtained the land where the once proud mill stood, and it currently hosts the Manchaug Fire Station. A new, spacious package steel building was built to house the department, standing in semi tribute and testament to one of Sutton’s worst fires.

Mr. Sherman

Originally Published July 24, 2015 by Steve LeClaire

Lewis and Emma Sherman

Lewis H. Sherman

Mr. Sherman and Betty LeClaire

When I was a little kid growing up in Sutton, one of our most colorful neighbors had to be Lewis Sherman. To the neighborhood kids, he was the subject of constant fascination and speculation; a creepy gruff old man. To us, he was the very devil himself, incarnate on earth. At my young age in the early 1960’s, Lewis Sherman became the personification of old age. He was the benchmark to whom all others were measured by, as he’d lived past age ninety. Ninety-three I think. Very few people lived to see ninety back then. Mr. Sherman lived alone at his farm, the next house up from us on Boston Road after St Mark’s Church. When I was a little shaver, we seldom saw him up close. The neighborhood kids kept a polite and somewhat apprehensive distance from the old man, and definitely steered clear of him when there were no other adults around. Legend with the older kids held that Mr. Sherman sat in an upstairs window sometimes and shot at trespassers with a shotgun full of rock salt. I could never quite reconcile that, because he always sat in the same front window of the house in his rocking chair. He was always right there, watching the world go by. He peered out through the curtain and waved with his hand with the missing fingers – the result of some grizzly farming accident perhaps – as we sped by on our bikes. The imaginary, creepy haunted house organ music would play in my head whenever I saw those stumpy fingers wave at me. My stomach knotted with terror and I felt the very gates of Hell had opened up and were ready to suck me down through the cellar of old Sherman’s house. As I got a little older, I sensed that somehow he really liked kids. But - I still wasn’t taking any chance with that rock salt. No sir! I suppose I didn’t even know what rock salt was, but it sounded painful. I never quite convinced myself if it were true, or if the older kids were just stuffing us. Years later, I came to understand that gruff old “Yankee Farmer” dry sense of humor, of a practical joke, or barnyard prank. Lewis Sherman could have invented the style. But when I was a kid, he was terrifying.

Did I ever meet him? Yes, eventually, but never EVER alone. I remember him walking over to my Dad’s insurance office that was in our house. I was playing in the yard and caught a glimpse of Mr. Sherman slowly hobbling up the sidewalk with his cane. I ran inside screeching, “Mr. Sherman’s coming! Mr. Sherman’s coming! And then sat inside and waited a full twenty minutes or more for him to wobble into the yard. He often wore the same well-worn gray wool sweater and a gray tweed cap and with a couple days beard stubble, he looked to be a very coarse, itchy person. I prayed he wouldn’t touch me.

I suppose he’d come to pay a bill or something. I managed to peek into the office somehow, by making an excuse to go in and get a pencil or some paper. It felt safe to gawk as long as Mom and Dad were close at hand. Mr. Sherman had out his billfold, homemade of old mattress ticking or some type of heavy striped cloth. He awkwardly peeled off bills with his two big thumbs, and the hand with the missing fingers. He handed over a wad of bills, telling Dad “You count out what you need,” in a kind of slurred and toothless speech he had. He then signed his name with an “X”. I was amazed that a man as old as he was had not learned to write, but heard from my grandmother that Mr. Sherman had done alright for a man who did not read or write. The Sherman’s owned property all over town, and Lewis had been an exceptional mechanic and blacksmith. He could calculate board feet of lumber, judge the hind quarter weight of a steer, and shoe and ox – all important skills to make a living in his world. He knew what a piece of property was worth, be it an apartment or a standing wood lot. He collected his rents accordingly. To be sure, he often needed a shave and to wipe the chewing tobacco stain from his lower lip, but nobody messed with Lewis.

When he was done his business with my father, Mr. Sherman often said, “Let’s have a look at them boys!” and to my horror, my brothers and I were gathered up and paraded out to greet him. He dug back into his billfold and found a shiny quarter for each of us. He grinned a little, looked right AT ME - and winked at us. In amazement, I thanked him politely as I’d been taught, and then hurried out of the room. As Mr. Sherman hobbled out of the office and back up the road to his home, I viewed the quarter in my palm, now worth significantly more than a mere twenty five cents. I proudly showed it to my friends as a trophy and living proof that I had indeed met Mr. Sherman. He hadn’t skinned me alive or even taken a pot shot at me!

As I grew a bit older, I got to go inside Mr. Sherman’s house. He was the step-great grandfather ( or something like that . . . ) of two of my best friends growing up. Twins Peter & Ray Wolochowicz were made to check up on the old man and do his chores. They had to empty his slop bucket for him. The bucket was an old coal hod, a spittoon really, and was always to the left of the rocking chair. The right side of the chair was against the window so that Mr. Sherman could look up the road towards Sutton Center. He spit tobacco juice into the bucket constantly, and it looked like any table scraps and garbage went into the bucket too. There was always a vile concoction of stuff breeding in there. I heard tell of a neighbor boy about my age who went visiting Mr. Sherman with his father one day. At the end of the visit, the father told the boy, “Now go give Mr. Sherman a hug.” The boy reluctantly got up on his lap, and Mr. Sherman drawled “Ahhh, ain’t that nice,” and while setting the boy back to the floor, set him knee deep in the slimy coal hod. I imagine you could have heard the screams across town.

My friend Peter often tried to engage the old man in conversation, but it was usually one sided. He had to really speak up, as the old man had become quite hard of hearing. We assisted Mr. Sherman out through the woodshed to the outhouse in the back corner of the ell. I don’t think he had indoor plumbing other than a pump in the sink. We helped settle him on the wooden seat. The door was hardly shut when Peter would ask, “Are you done yet, Gramp?” through the slam of the door came a growl and a curt “NO! Gooddammit boy!, and we left him alone a while longer. That was when it was time to go empty the slop bucket. Peter told me once how Mr. Sherman got into a coughing fit in the outhouse so bad once that he lost his teeth down the hole. Without much fanfare, he merely fished them out, rinsed them off at the old hand pump and put them back in his mouth. We eventually got to know Mr. Sherman a little, and became reasonably sure he wouldn’t lock us in the cellar. He proved to be a gracious host until he got really ancient. I recall someone bringing him a sponge cake for his birthday, and he told them he’d prefer to eat the sponge out of the sink. Senility had taken deep root.

Just before he really started to fail, he always made sure we got over to the fancy front parlor to see his grand piano. I don’t think young or old Lewis Sherman ever played it, but I’m told each of his two wives, and his children were somewhat musical. Peter and I had been taking lessons and played a couple things as Mr. Sherman hobbled over to hear. He showed us his wind up Victrola record player, and a few of his violins. He had a rough rectangular violin that he told us he made himself from apple wood he had harvested up on his hillside. It was an incredible piece of ‘folk art’ craftsmanship. I never heard him play anything, but I could tell he was silently proud of his little farm, his showplace, his home. I found it fascinating that such a coarse old farmer would also be a man of such culture.

My Mom told me that she had a special bond with Mr. Sherman in that they both shared the same birthday, albeit many years apart. Every year, she sent him a card. In fact Mr. Sherman had been a guest at Mom and Dad’s wedding, a fact I found infinitely fascinating. Mr. Sherman eventually died of old age, and naturally life went on the same for the rest of us. But for us kids, old Lewis became the standard by which all age was measured. Would anyone we knew ever “break the record” of old age achieved by Lewis Sherman? Even if someone came close, it would never be the same because they broke the mold when they made old Lewis. We lost a genuine link to the real past of Sutton when he finally passed away. I discovered years later that Lewis Sherman had been a first rate teamster and oxen driver. He drove the first horse drawn school bus in town, “The Lady Of The Lake”. He’d been a constable in town, and run a successful blacksmith and wheelwright business that could make just about anything. His shop eventually became the property of the Sutton Historical Society. Lewis Sherman’s farm was a showplace, and he’d been a successful horticulturalist breeding apple, pear and cherry trees. I just wish I had been a little older; old enough to ask questions and glean pearls of wisdom and to appreciate him more than just as a scary old man.

Requiem for a Barn

Originally Published July 23, 2015 by Steve LeClaire

We lost more than a barn in Sutton last week. We lost volumes of unwritten Sutton history. Two hundred and fifty year’s worth of history - gone in a crack of lightning and condensed into less than an hour’s worth of smoke and flame. Sayings like “if only these walls could talk” and “if only the horses were listening and we could understand them” come to mind. Can you imagine what gems we’d hear if those sayings were true? Well, the witness may be gone, but the memories remain.

From its humble beginnings, the house and barns overlooking Clark’s Pond from the hill of Sutton Center was a noted landmark.

The place was originally Hale’s Tavern. It had a lengthy history as LeBaron’s Tavern. It was the most popular place between Boston & Hartford along the Post Road from the time of the American Revolution to before the American Civil War. Amongst the guests the aristocratic Lazarus LeBaron entertained were such important historical figures as General LaFayette and Governor John Hancock. I imagine all those famous people using LeBaron’s chamber pots and outhouse, and being heated by the forty plus cords of wood the tavern is said to have burned annually. Their horses most likely spent the night in the safety and comfort of the barn.

LeBaron’s only daughter Hannah and her husband, Captain Isreal Putnam had a thriving farm there. Theodore Putnam is said to have kept the place “in a fine state of cultivation with a fine stock of cattle – preparing most of his own fertilizers”.

To be sure, the insurance settlement ( and further financial hit on current owner George’s Funari’s wallet ) will certainly show it was George Funari’s showplace home of the 21st century when the barn burned down last week. And George certainly restored the place to its former beauty and glory, putting his own unique personality and stamp on the farm as well as becoming part of the fabric of Sutton. But to me and my generation, it was and will forever be known as “Wally’s place”.

Wally Johnson was a Swede from ‘the village’ in Worcester, but his mother was an Eaton from Sutton where he was born. As a boy, he was sent to work at “The Putnam Place” in Sutton Center, where he met, courted and married Charlie Putnam’s daughter Shirley. By marrying Shirley Putnam, he came to the large farm on the hill and set up housekeeping. Farming blood was in Wally’s veins, and he continued to farm. The original part of the barn dated back to the 1700’s. It was an English style barn where the entrance doors were along the long side, instead of the gable end as we know most barns today. Wally did a lot of renovating, adding, cutting, and pasting as was needed at the time. Over the course of many years, the profile and roofline of the barn changed and adapted to the needs of its owners. The original part of the barn became the enclosed, dark and cavernous recesses where the ( seemingly ) thousands of hay bales were stored. It was hot in there.

As a young newspaper delivery boy in the 1960’s, I loved to make my delivery to Wally & Shirley’s Farm. Shirley often set me up with milk and cookies, and I’d often poke my head into Wally’s barn to wave hello as Wally milked a couple cows or tended to his horses. Wally’s barn was where the action was; where huge Belgian horses were bred, where John Deere tractors were kept, where endless loads of hay were unloaded and where lively political discussions were held. Tobacco was chewed ( and spit ), beer was sometimes quaffed after haying, and curse words were sprinkled liberally in conversation. Metal was hammered and boards were sawed. It smelled of hay and grain, sweat and manure. It was a place of men, but we kids were always welcomed. Wally and Shirley never had any children of their own. However, he was ‘Uncle Wally’ to his nieces Joyce & Barbie, all their friends and half the extended town.

As many know, Wally was a 40 year selectman in Sutton. What many don’t know is that his unofficial ‘office’ was his barn. He often held ‘meetings before the meetings’ in his barn. In this way he was never blindsided at the official Town Meeting or Selectman’s meetings, and everyone’s position on a matter could be agreed on. In today’s climate of open meeting law this method of barnyard politics would probably never fly, but the best interests of the Town were always cultivated in the barnyard. If someone approached Wally with a problem or question, his response was often “drop by the barn and we’ll talk about it”. Wally loved Sutton. I can still hear him at town meeting, speaking from the Selectman’s table “Now, I could be wrong, but . . . “ He’d then state his position, or opposition and make his point. Either way, it was always colorful. Wally left Sutton for World War II and the European theater from Sutton. I can imagine him kissing Shirley before leaving, and kissing her a bit more affectionately on his return. He adored Shirley.

Wally soon filled his barn with Belgian horses. He purchased his first team from two Amish brothers of Farmerstown, Ohio - beginning friendships and strong connections with the Amish that last to this day. Had the barn burned while Wally owned it, within a week there probably would have been fifty Amish men on a bus headed to Sutton to reconstruct the barn by hand. Many an Amishman spent the entire summer at Wally’s, helping with chores and breeding and training the horses. Wally made many trips to Ohio to visit, buy and sell horses as well.

The barn always had a rooster. Henry the Rooster was pure evil. He delighted in surprising who ever got too close by raising in the air and slashing with his sharp spurs. Wally was gashed and bloodied more than once, and Henry felt the wrath of Wally’s boot more than once. Over the years, I think Henry got in more licks than Wally. There may have in fact been a succession of roosters named Henry. For years I thought the rooster’s name was ‘Son Of A Bitch’.

The wagon train to benefit Waters Farm gathered behind Wally’s barn and departed from there in 1988. There, underneath the barn sign of “Longueview Farm” Wally again kissed Shirley goodbye as he boarded his covered wagon and left on the ten day journey to Livermore, Maine. He coaxed his team of Belgians ahead by snarling “giddap!” With nothing but a wool army blanket and no mattress , he slept on the hard wood floor the of the wagon during the journey in the heat of July. He was seventy years old. The toughest son of a bitch I’d ever seen.

Wally let me host several years of Civil War encampments in and around his barnyard in the late 1990’s. The camps were set up in his adjoining fields, and open to the public. He supplied hay for the soldiers to sleep on from his barn. Wally was given the honor of raising the flag in the camps on several mornings. It was a ceremony he relished and performed with the solemn dignity and pride of his army service. One night around the ‘civil war’ campfire, we watched as a pair of headlights drove through the field - an anachronism and intrusion into our pretend 19th century world. The headlights drove right up to the campfire. It was Wally & Shirley, who sat in the car holding hands as they listened to the music and singing around the campfire. I heard one soldier ask with slightly indignation “Who does that guy think he is?” and another answered, “ He doesn’t think he’s anybody. That’s Wally Johnson. He owns this place you’re a guest on”.

As I got older ( and as Wally got older and needed more help ) I became part of his volunteer haying crew. Wally had started a tradition of hosting a very informal ‘Farmer’s Lunch’ on Saturdays. After a few pearls of wisdom and review of town events from Wally, we’d receive a few slices of cold cuts on a couple slices of bread washed down by a glass of room temperature soda. We’d adjourn to the barn to take down the week’s supply of feed hay. During the summer months we’d help Wally bale and put in his hay. The socializing in the barn tradition amongst men continued on.

It was after haying one late summer afternoon that a ferocious storm rolled in. We’d just sent the last bale up the elevator, beating the rain by mere seconds as the thunder rolled and growled closer. Most of the help scattered for the dry interior of their pickups and left. But Wally, Bob Largess, Dan Moroney and I took shelter and got caught in the open sided carriage shed to the west of the barn. We watched as the water poured in sheets off the barn roof. Fortunately Largess had taken the cooler of beer with him. We sat and watched the rain. Wally, never one to drink in excess, decided to have a beer. As the rain poured, one turned in to two, and the stories started to flow from Wally much like the streams of water now running through the barnyard.

He talked about getting drunk the night before his wedding with his friend Roy Potter. Roy somehow convinced Wally that he had time, and that it would be OK to go grab a drink at a local watering hole. Wally came home in time to milk the cows, and with his head pounding, fell asleep leaning against one of the cows. “This old coconut felt pretty good against that soft cow.” He said pointing to his head. He almost missed his own wedding. He jokingly added in his usual self- deprecating manner, “You know…you can always tell a Swede, but you can’t tell him much!”

He talked of shoeing the last team of oxen in the Sherman Blacksmith Shop with Lewis Sherman after the hurricane of 1938. Wally was all of 21 years old. Lewis Sherman and Wally were lifelong friends and farmer neighbors. They were hauling logs out of Purgatory Chasm, and only oxen could handle the heavy work. Wally was sent to get “the bulls” to receive new shoes. While being shod, one of the oxen unleashed a steaming load of manure down the neck of the kneeling Lewis Sherman, and Wally had to stifle his laughter. “Laugh, you little bastard, laugh!” was all Lewis could say.

Then, for whatever reason, Wally started to talk about his experiences in the war. He’d been a medic. I asked him what rank he’d attained, and he spit and answered, “just a buck private, that’s all”. But he started to talk about the Battle of the Bulge, and how he’d been in the thick of it. The thunder boomed overhead. He talked of the bitter cold of the foxholes. These were stories none of us had ever heard. He talked of using the coats of ‘dead Krauts’ for blankets, and using the dead Krauts themselves for cover. He talked of kicking the dead Krauts off the bridge crossing The Rhine River. There were anecdotes he related that no man should ever have to go through. He talked about the cries of the wounded and how he could help some, and others he couldn’t. “I didn’t know nothin’, just what they taught me” was all he could say.

The thunder clapped hard. Wally said, “You know, one of these days the god damned lightning will probably get that barn.“ I asked him what he’d do. “Shout Alleluia!” he said without missing a beat, but then added “I hope I ain’t around to see it though. You know? Some people might say this is all crap. All junk “, as he waved his arm in the general direction of the barn and some equipment rusting along the brush line. “But I can look out the window and say it’s MY junk. And that’s the way it ought to be. That barn meant work, but it was work I always loved and looked forward to. “

Who could ask for anything more?