Moving Houses and Plowing Potatoes

I was delivered on April 24, 1943 in a farmhouse on the property which is now owned and lived on by my older brother George. I lived in that house from 1943 to 1945, when we swapped houses with my Grandfather John Kana, who at that time lived in the house that my brother, John, lives in today.

I seem to have a photographic memory and can recall early times in my life. One example is that I vividly recall us moving from one house to the other. I was only two years old, but I can see people throwing stuff onto our horse-drawn wagon. I was sitting on the seat of the wagon and as we moved across the pasture, I recall seeing the tank or pond as we traveled across the tank dam. The tank has been enlarged twice since then, as it was just a mud hole with grapevines grown on some trees near it. My mother just couldn’t believe I could remember that far back; but, after hearing the details I gave her, she figured it was true.

Our neighbors, Dickie and Bobby Adams, had an adjoining farm east of my home place and they bought and moved the house I was born in across Munke Road, where it still stands today. My brother, George, moved another house onto the Kana property and lives there to this day.

After my grandfather John Kana’s house was moved in about 1959, that spot stayed vacant, except for the shops and cow shed. It belonged to my dad at that time, so all he did on the property was to have a large garden, where we grew our potatoes. It was quite a large potato patch; and, when it came time to harvest them, it took just about all day.

My dad would plow the potatoes out one row at a time with a pair of mules and a sweep stalk (a kind of plow you had to hold onto two wooden handles). Since he had to hold it with both hands, he would loop the reins to control the mules with around his waist. When the mules came to the end of the row, he would drop the plow handles, letting the plow just roll over and drag along, as he grabbed the reins and guided the mules to another row.

Well, it just so happened that one day, as he entered the garden, he left the gate open; and, I guess when the mules saw the open gate, they decided it was time to go back home and they bolted. Since Daddy had no control over them at that time, hollering “Whoa, whoa!” didn’t stop them and they ran full speed toward home. In the process, the plow broke loose and Dad was thrown to the ground with the reins still around his waist. He was dragged this way for about two hundred feet until he finally dislodged himself from the reins. When the mules came to a stop at the home gate leading to their stall, they just patiently stood there. You can well imagine what my fuming Dad did when he caught up with them. For starters – I think he called them every name in the book!

PS: This pair of mules were both female! I never found out just what possessed Dad to call them “Ginney and Mike”!