INSTALLMENT SIX - MEJ's Bio (The Dirty Thirties)

Menne and Dena on the left - with friends.
Around 1924

This is the actual elevator that MEJ
managed in Lennox.

The “Dirty” Thirties

In 1930 we moved to the farm that my father owned, consisting of 160 acres. That was the first year of drought and depression that lasted for about six years. Normal rainfall for this part of the country is in the neighborhood of 25 or 26 inches, but during those dry times we were lucky to get 15 or 16 inches per year. Crops were almost non-existent in those years. I remember walking over (picking) a 100 acre field of corn and when it was all done the corn I had found was contained in one wagon. It was not the drought alone that bothered the people of that time, but also a depression all over the country.

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Dust storm approaching Stratford, Texas Dust bowl surveying in Texas
Image ID: theb1365, Historic C&GS Collection
Location: Stratford, Texas
Photo Date: April 18, 1935
Credit: NOAA George E. Marsh Album

Here in South Dakota, our greatest drawback was the constant threat of dust storms. Since the soil was so dry, it needed just a small breeze to start the dust to roll along. In some places the dust banked up like snow, sometimes covering fences four feet high. It also sifted into houses, covering window sills and floors with a fine layer of dust. I heard one lady say that she was going to dust up the house; the dust on her floors and window sills was getting stale. She wanted some fresh dust.
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http://blacklegacres.tripod.com/horse_farming.htm

It might be of interest to recount a few of the things that happened to us after we started farming. We had no money to buy the needed equipment, so with financial help from my father, the grocery store owner, and the implement dealer we managed to plant and then harvest the first crop. This was the year 1929, and it was 10 years later before this debt was finally paid. Even so, I bought no new machinery, just used equipment that I was able to pick up at farm sales. In 1929 tractors were not very popular as yet, so horses were still very much in use. The first ones I bought were black mares called Polly and Flossy. My father still owned two horses that I was able to borrow for the first season. I got along with just the four horses for the first season.

In the fall of 1929 I bought two horses from a neighbor. Those two were named Shorty and Luey, but they were well along in years so they didn’t last very long. To replace them I bought Nellie from an uncle, and a little later a more or less wild bronco from a horse peddler. Her name was Lady, but she was no lady. 
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German horses - from Ostfriesland, 2011

Still later I acquired Bell and Queen. By this time tractors were becoming more popular and also a little more useful. The first tractor I bought was a used Huber and it was a flop. It weighed several tons, and had enough power to pull your hat off if it was helped a little... I couldn’t even trade it in on another tractor so I sold it for junk. Next I bought another used machine, this time a Rock Island. It, too, was a very heavy, steel-wheeled machine, but at least it did the work it was supposed to do, and it eliminated the need for so many horses. In 1941 I bought a modern row-crop type Minneapolis Moline tractor which I used until I quit farming.

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http://tranctorsused.com/?page_id=22
This may not be exactly like the Minneapolis Moline my Dad bought, but it is close.
This one was announced in July of 1937 as their Universal Z model.