Memories Of Perry Rubart, Part 1 of 4,
Perry Rubart was born in 1931 near Madison, and died in 2023 in Fayetteville, Ark. Starting in the 1970s Perry started a book titled Dare To Dream, and completed the book in 2011. This series features highlights of that book.
“Perry was born on a farm four miles southwest of Madison, Kansas. Dr. Haynes was supposed to help with the birth, but he was not in town, so Dr. Fairbrothers, a new doctor in town was called to help with the birth of Perry. Perry’s mother died in 1937 and Perry’s older sister Mary had to take the place of his mother. Mary’s homemade pancakes and doughnuts were the best ever made. Perry remembers taking the cooked doughnuts and putting them in a paper sack while they were still hot with either sugar or powdered sugar and shaking vigorously. Then they were ready to sample, of which there was never a reject.
“Perry’s dad was proud they always had enough to eat even if it was a steady diet of the same produce of the season. It was a constant struggle with weather, insects and predators to raise a vegetable garden, but they had one of the biggest in the area. They also had a large orchard of fruit trees where peaches, apples, pears, plums and cherries grew. The hoe, rake, shovel and wheel hoe were introduced to Perry at an early age to use in the garden.
“Christmas time at the Rubarts’ now is a special occasion. During the lean years on the farm, plus no relatives living close by, they never had family gathering as many other families did. Perry’s most memorable Christmas was a pocket knife left on the doorknob of the front door of what they called the living room. ‘This room was the largest in our house but was never used in winter except for storage.’ The kitchen was a large, general- purpose rectangular room which was the center of most activity. A large wood burning stove located at the east end was the sole source of heat in a cold drafty house. In the winter they would build a fire in the black monster, put the oven door down, and then gather as close as possible to eat.
“There seemed to be a constant shortage of firewood, as the farm was located on the prairie. It was about five miles to the nearest creek, where good timber was located. They sometimes cut wood in the hedge rows on the old Lose place, a mile or so away, as it was easier to get to with the team and wagon.
“On Saturday in the wintertime, Perry and his dad would hook up a team of horses to the hay rack and travel to the hedgerows. They would unhitch the team and tie them to the wagon in a small ravine that would protect them somewhat from the wind and cold. Perry’s dad would saw down the hedge trees, and it was Perry’s job as a boy with a hatchet and small axe, to trim off the branches and to pile the brush to burn later. At noon, they would build a small fire to warm up while they ate their sandwiches.
‘One noon we opened our lunch to eat and the bread was frozen solid.’ Perry’s dad put the bacon and ham sandwich on one side of the double-bitted axe and held it over the fire until they were toasted brown. The flavor was fit for a king’s banquet.
“In later afternoon, they would load their day’s cutting of wood on the ironwheeled wagon and go home to do the regular evening chores. It seemed a never-ending job to carry feed and bedding to all the livestock, then to clean the stalls out by shoveling the manure into a pile beside the barn, only to later load the same material in a spreader to haul to fields to spread when they dried out.
“The two-legged varieties of farm animals were just as bad to care for as a boy on the farm. This involved two large laying-hen houses that had wooden box-like nests, where the hens were supposed to deposit their eggs then retire to roost. Seems like some of them didn’t like this system. The hens that were laying eggs would drop theirs through the roost covered with chicken mesh wire into fresh droppings, and the ones that were not laying would retire to the laying nests, get mad, and take up the role as sitting hens. These had to be caught and confined to a jail-like, small chicken house until their spirit was broken.
“All the eggs gathered had to be candled (passed over a small opening under a tent-like contraption that was fitted over a lamp in a dark room or cellar) to determine if the egg was good. Then the eggs were washed, dried by hand, and packed in wooden egg cases with cardboard filler between each layer of eggs. On Saturday night, the weekly trip to town to sell those crates or trade for staple of food was the highlight of the week for the family.
“The milking of cows and separating the cream to sell was another twicea- day chore that was no small task. In the summer months, it was necessary to go to the pasture to find the cows and drive them to the barn for milking. One morning while searching the hills and ravines through wet grass from a previous night’s thunderstorm, Perry came upon a scene that ran chills up his spine. Lying in almost a perfect circle of about twenty feet in diameter were five of their best milking cows, killed by lightning from the previous night’s storm. After bringing the rest of the cows to the barn he told his dad of the bad news. A call to the dead animal removal company brought a truck the following day with a flap-down tailgate and power winch to drag the best milk cows up the ramp for their last ride. Perry’s father heard about a neighbor, Mr. Turner, who was selling out to move to California. He went over to his place and purchased a milk cow from him. ‘He lived in what we later would refer to as the halfway house.’ It was an old square house that was equal distance between Madison and Hamilton, Kansas, on Hwy. 99 on the east side of the highway.
“Mr. Turner was to deliver the cow a couple days later. Perry’s father paid for his purchase and believed that a man’s word was his bond. The next day Mr. Turner called to say that our new cow, still undelivered, was sick and that he had called a veterinarian. The cow died a couple days later and Mr. Turner had left the country, Perry’s first experience that not all people were honest and trustworthy.
“After milking, the milk was taken to the house, strained through clean muslin cloth and placed in crocks for the cream to rise. In later years they ran it through a hand-cranked cream separator that had to be washed after taking it apart after each operation. The finished product was good, fresh, sweet cream that was hard to beat on a bowl of fresh-picked strawberries or mixed with eggs, sugar, vanilla and hand cranked into homemade ice cream. This was usually a Sunday morning treat after purchasing a 50-pound cake of store-bought ice from the ice plant on Saturday night, wrapping it with several burlap bags and old quits. What was left of the ice cake following the freezing of the ice cream was chipped in small chunks for iced tea or lemonade for that once-a-week treat of cool drinks.
‘Our source of drinking water was a hand-dug well about 14 feet deep, located in the most inconvenient place possible.’ It was dug on the opposite side of the house from the kitchen, near the front gate. It was Perry’s and his brother, Donnie’s job to keep the water bucket filled. The pump over the well was a hand suction type, suspended on boards over the well opening, that had to be visited much too often. Perry’s favorite prank was to con his brother into carrying the bucket of water at night, run ahead, hide behind the lilac bushes on the south side of the house, wait until he got close, jump out and scare him, make him spill all the water, and then send him back for another bucketful. ‘Of course, this was always followed by the threat that if he told, I would do something worse.’
“‘One meal I had taken a very large piece of cornbread and broken it up and poured an extra-large amount of Karo syrup on it. I was advised that was fine, but, as always, I had to clean up the plate of my most generous helping. I didn’t get around it that meal, and it was put aside and consisted of my first course at the next meal, at which time the cornbread was cold, syrup-soaked, and didn’t have a good color or flavor, but I was full of the lesson learned.’
“Perry doesn’t recall of too many whippings, but one of the toughest jobs was being sent out to cut a switch from a tree to get the licking. Seemed like the longer Perry looked for one that was small and tender, the more he decided that last bit of foolery wasn’t worth the end results.
“One whipping that really impressed Perry was when he got caught in a lie. His father went to town one day, told Perry to go to the far side of the pasture and fix a wire fence along with the other chores. ‘I finished all of them but the fence task in record time, then decided it was play time. I got so involved in play that the fence mending was completely forgotten.’ When his dad got home, he asked Perry if he got the fence fixed and his quick thought was that he would tell him he had, then go do it before he had a chance to check it. The trouble with that reasoning was his dad had checked it at once and knew Perry had lied to him.
“Perry’s dad had chewed plug tobacco years before the children were born and had saved a couple of plugs, stored them in a metal can in the attic, and told Perry and his brother when they reached 21 years of age, they could try their hand at chewing.
“Of course, in his wisdom, Perry’s dad knew we would try it sooner, and so one rainy day, while playing in the attic, they decided it was time to sample the 20-yearold plug. They soon decided that their tender lips and mouth were not compatible with the old Union Standard brand, their first encounter with it was also their last.”
