Old memories hold on

I came along about the middle of the last century, while there were still some old-timers alive who had been born in the 1800s and early 1900s. All of my grandparents were born in the 1800s, and my parents were in the early 1900s. Sounds weird today to say I knew someone born back then. Kids today wouldn't believe me. History was surviving for me to see growing up. There were old homes and structures, relics from many generations before me. Most old homesteads had an old horse mower sitting around and maybe a dump rake. Most all of the homesteads had cellars.

A few still had the old hay wagon. It was set up for two horses to pull. Usually had a long wooden tongue. One would use a pitch fork, either a three-, four- or five-tine fork and pitch the hay on the wagon by hand. Then when you got where the hay was needed, you would pitch the hay off by hand. Lots of work which left no chance of getting cold. Dad had a couple work horses, and I can remember standing on an old hay wagon driving the horses, or I should say holding the reins. Dad was driving them from the ground with voice commands.

Just south of Mom and Dad's frame house was where the original sod house was located. Most if not all the houses in the Sandhills of Nebraska were constructed of sod. I've read where it took about an acre of sod to build a modest sod house. The roof was constructed of wood hauled in from a railroad which was about 30 miles south or 40 miles north. Either way it was quite a jaunt to haul lumber up into the Sandhills.

Where they were constructed of sod they were doomed to fail eventually if not maintained. The sod was probably about 3 inches thick and about 2 feet wide and 3 to 5 feet long. You would roll the sod up starting on one end. The rolls were heavy, with many weighing from 75 to 100 lbs. These were rolled out with care being taken to jog the pieces so the joints were apart. Once the house was built and allowed to settle some came along and smoothed the walls and then plastered them. Made for a nice smooth finish and looked nice. Some plastered both the inside and outside. Yearly, one had to replaster the cracks in the walls where they settled.

I spent a good bit of time with my Grandparents who lived in a sod house. Cool in the summer and warm in the winter. The walls were a good 2 feet thick, and most of the time the ceiling was maybe 7 feet high. Most old-timers were short with many being barely over 5 feet.

Upkeep would have been time consuming and costly to maintain. The old sod house at Mom and Dad's had fallen down, and all that was left was part of the roof. But just north and a little west of the sod house was the old root cellar. It was about 8 to 10 feet and deep enough for a grown man to stand up in. A mason had bricked in the roof, which was in a half circle and then covered with dirt. There was a stairwell that was bricked and plastered. One door on a slope led to the stairs and another door led from stairs into the main part of the cellar.

As one drives though the Sandhills all that remains of an old homestead and the dreams might be a few pieces of equipment, a few scraggly trees and the ruins of an old cellar. The only trees that grew were planted around the old sod houses. But there almost always was a cellar. In many cases the cellar was what kept you alive through the winter.

Another 20 or 30 or 40 years and even the cellars will be gone. History books will introduce the reader to cellars and the sodie but firsthand knowledge will be gone.

A national treasure here in our country is disappearing. The old-timers with firsthand knowledge are about gone.