Things Change: Memories and Lessons of a Baby Boomer Farm Kid, Life Long Student, and Forty-Year Educator

Prologue

In planning for her wedding, my daughter, Angela, asked me if I had any words of wisdom for her and her soon to be husband, Justin. I took her request seriously. However, as I gathered my thoughts, I kept coming up with only one thing that seemed to always be correct; things change. Nothing, good or evil, continues forever.

The letter I prepared in answer to her question became the motivation to write this book. In writing this book, I again had to decide what have I learned. In the 1980 song Beautiful Boy (Darling Boy), John Lennon wrote: Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans. As we baby boomers replace our parents as the oldest members of the family (in the words of my father, move into the front pew), it is well to reflect on what we have learned as we have planned other things.

About a century ago, Freudian psychology was beginning to emerge. In my view, one of Freud’s major contributions to an understanding of the human condition was his idea, the child is the father of the man. Decades of research and academic argument have still not concluded whether nature or nurture is more important in determining who we are and what we believe. However, I think there is little doubt that nurture has a huge role to play. What was imprinted on our blank slate in our childhood, we assume to be true.

Were we raised in the city, a suburb, a small town, or on a farm? Did we have one sibling or a dozen? Did we attend a private school or a public school? Did we get drafted, or did we get a student deferment and attend college? Did we go to Woodstock or San Francisco, or did we never even hear of these places as we worked our butts off trying to pay for our education or start a family?

Many of us heard the call of John Lennon from Revolution in the 1968 White Album when he sang, We all want to change the world. We made plans, and life happened. So what shaped your life? Was it the inspirational words of John Kennedy, Robert Kennedy, Martin Luther King, Jr., Betty Freidman, Gloria Steinem, or Pope John XXIII? Was it the Vietnam War or the peace movement on college campuses? Did you have an inspirational teacher or professor?

All of the above influenced me. It was stories from my uncles as well as some high school teachers who served in World War II. It was stories from my grandparents about life during the Great Depression. But most of all, it was the farm, my parents and my siblings. Ben Logan, in The Land Remembers argued that one can’t escape the land. We are all products of our experiences, especially as children.

Scientists tell us every single experience we have ever had is stored in our brain until our deaths. These experiences are joyous, painful, or just memorable. They make our story. As a teacher of his-stories and her-stories for 40 years, I felt a need to share some of my stories in the hope that you, the reader, may find some entertaining and some a basis for self-reflection.

I grew up on a farm located on a T-intersection of Factory Road and Mill Road (about 45 miles northwest of Madison, WI). Both were gravel roads. Factory Road was named after Ted Diehl’s cheese factory less than a mile from our farm. Mill Road came from a gristmill located on Honey Creek in Blackhawk less than two miles from our farm. In the summer, when we would see a cloud of dust whirling up from the gravel road, we knew a car was coming. We would stop what we were doing to see and wave to the person driving past. If a car drove past with a driver we did not know, the question would filter through the neighborhood as to the identity of the stranger. One way to get this information was to rubberneck on the party line telephone. Each neighbor had a different set of rings. Ours was two shorts, and a long. When we answered our ring, our neighbors could listen to our conversation and vice versa.

The farm was everything. It provided our home, our occupation, our income, and our entertainment. My experiences growing up there were the father of the man. Thomas Wolfe said one can never go home again. In a way, he was right because everything does indeed change. My father is gone. I am now older than my parents when they lived on the farm. My siblings have moved on with their respective lives. Maybe we can never go home again, but maybe we never left. I honestly believe that not a single day has ever passed that I have not thought about the farm and my experiences growing up there.

Many philosophers, from the Age of Reason forward, have argued that change is the only constant. That may be true, but we can still learn from the past and enjoy the memories. The stories I have learned from my elders and my own experiences are rich and provide meaning to life. Who doesn’t enjoy a good story? Life is really just a collection of his-stories and her-stories. Telling the stories for others is almost as much fun as it was to experience them.

Chapter 1

His-Stories and Her-Stories

On May 30, 1866, my great grandmother, Mary Kramer, was born premature aboard a ship on the Atlantic Ocean. Her parents were emigrating to the U.S. to start a new life … the American Dream. Given the conditions on board the ship, deaths of babies and young children were common. One mother’s baby died, but she carried it around wrapped in a blanket for several days. Finally, it became obvious that the baby was dead. The baby was literally stripped from the mother and thrown overboard. Mary’s parents told of the horror experienced by the mother as she watched her baby float away on the waves; it didn’t sink because of the time passed since the death. This is one of the many her-stories and his-stories passed on from George and Mary (Kramer) Laubmeier to their children and grandchildren. This story was passed to me by my grandmother, Rosina Laubmeier.

My great-grandfather George, at the age of 17, left Grafenried (in Austria-Hungary at the time) for opportunities in America. In 1885, he arrived at Ellis Island, New York with all his worldly possessions contained in a single wooden trunk and five U.S. dollars (after conversion). George set out for the Spring Green – Plain, Wisconsin area by hitchhiking. Others from Grafenried had settled there earlier. When he arrived in Spring Green, he was out of money and had large holes in the soles of his boots. He went from farm to farm asking for a job. Finally, a farmer offered him a new pair of boots, the opportunity to sleep in the barn with the animals, and three square meals per day in exchange for three months of work. At the end of the three months, the farmer said he might begin to pay him a wage. George took the offer and eventually bought the farm (S11227 Butternut Rd., Spring Green, WI).

I am now the proud owner of this piece of family history. It is in my will that the trunk be passed to my son and then to his son to keep it in the Laubmeier family.

On Christmas Day morning in 2004, my daughter left our home to move to Minneapolis, Minnesota to follow the love of her life. It was a difficult morning for me to know my daughter would live so far away. However, in this age of cell phones and Skype, Angela is never far away. Imagine the strength of character of my great grandfather George and millions of other immigrants who left their families knowing they would never see them or talk to them again.

One can argue the United States was populated by millions of the most gifted and entrepreneurial folks or merely the most desperate. Either way, George and the rest of them came here hoping for a better life. George ended up owning a farm and raising his family with plenty of food. This apparently was not possible in Austria-Hungary in the late 1800s.

George, with his wife and children are pictured here. George’s oldest son was Joseph (my grandfather). He is the tall man in the back row. Joseph started school unable to speak a word of English. He worked hard on the family farm and eventually bought a farm himself (E6098 Mill Rd., Plain, WI). On that farm, Joseph and his wife (Rosina Brickl) raised two sons and two daughters.

Near the end of World War I (1918), Grandpa was drafted into the army. At the time, my grandparents had a one-year old child. Grandma was left to do all the hand milking, feeding of pigs, feeding chickens, tending to the house, and planting of spring crops. Luckily, the war ended before Joe was sent overseas, and he returned home in a few months. You did what you had to do.

Joseph and Rosina had their four children between 1917 and 1925. The youngest, Ann was so small at birth that my father, Wilbert Laubmeier, can remember his mother putting her in a shoebox and setting her next to the wood stove to keep warm. My grandparents were very proud that they were able to raise this family and always have plenty for them to eat. My dad shared stories of walking to and from school and having lard sandwiches when he got home.

Dad and his older brother, Tony, became fine workers on Grandpa’s farm. Tony and Dad were allowed to hire themselves out to neighbors (usually for one dollar/day). Until the brothers reached the age of 21, any cash earned had to be turned over to Grandpa and Grandma.

As my dad and his siblings matured, Grandpa and Grandma decided each of their children would become farmers. It was an honorable profession, and one would always be able to eat … even during depressions. Grandpa and Grandma bought four additional farms over a period of years. Each farm was to be resold to a child and spouse. At least one of these farms was purchased at a sheriff’s auction on the steps of the Baraboo courthouse.

Joseph was active in local government. He served as Chairman of the Town of Franklin, as a Sauk County Board supervisor, and as a member of the Sauk County Draft Board during World War II.

My grandpa, pictured here with my grandma told me about a man he knew who fought in the Battle of Gettysburg. I used to begin my history classes each year by shaking a student’s hand. I then would explain, My grandfather shook the hand of a man who fought at Gettysburg. I shook my grandfather’s hand and am now shaking your hand. You are only three handshakes away from someone who fought in the Civil War.

Grandma’s Letter

At the end of World War II, Germans living near the Czech-German border were assumed to have been German sympathizers in 1939 when Hitler seized the Sudentenland without the French and British declaring war (Munich Appeasement). After the war, these Germans were exiled to Germany. With only a few hours notice, they had to leave their farms, farm equipment, and houses. The village of Grafenried, where my ancestors lived, was burned. It was a terrible time for my relatives. My grandparents sent a package of needed items to the Johann (Hans) Laubmeier (brother of George referred to earlier with the trunk) in Germany. The recipient responded with the following letter. My grandmother later translated it to me as I sat on her lap.

Kritzentghal, April 10, 1949

Dear Cousin Joseph with family,

Received our dear letter with great joy. As we see, things are going well for you and you are healthy, which is the main thing. We have as yet not received the package, but heartily thank you for it. One sees that one still has good friends out in the wide world. One is getting used to our fate a little better, since things won’t change. But we hope with steadfast trust in God that another time will come again for us. Even if there is no longer much for us older people, but for our children. I, myself, am already very accustomed to things. Since my childhood, I have had to work very hard. In the other world war, father was gone and came home as an invalid. In 1936, I married and took over the business (home). In 1940, I had to join the army and came to Russia. Was also in Russian captivity. Endured a great deal. And the worst was after. I came home; there was no home. One simply can’t write how that is. Write to me again so we hear something again. Then it is easier for us. About the reading, no need to worry, could read it very well. When the package arrives, we will let you know right away.

We wish you and your wife, as also all your children and grandchildren a festive Easter and the best wishes.

From your cousin,

Hans & family

The package referred to in the letter did indeed arrive. In it was an assortment of socks, mittens, candy bars, and sundry other things. A winter coat in the package was an absolute delight for the German family’s eight-year-old daughter. This was one of Grandma’s stories that began my love of history.

In 1996, my wife, children and I traveled to Neckarbischofsheim, Germany to meet Manfried Schroedl. Manfried was a grandnephew of my great-grandfather George. He took our family to meet Franzi (Laubmeier) Wallner, the girl who received the coat. She hugged me and thanked me for the long ago kindness of my grandparents. Franzi lived near the Czech border and took us across the border to see the original Laubmeier homestead area in Grafenried. Only rubble remained. I took two bricks from the destroyed house, a barn door hinge, and a piece of a small abandoned plow with me. We use the bricks as decorations in our flower garden.

This personalization of history by my grandmother helped generate my life-long interest in history. History is not something one can ever master. An interest in history simply grows and deepens.

The era in which a person was born really does have an effect on what that person considers truth or reality. Generally, children born in the Great Depression of the 1930s would do almost anything to avoid debt. Millennials see long-term debt as just one of the expected realities of going to college.

Depending on the expert source one decides to consult, there are slight differences as to the beginning and ending dates of recent generations of children born in the United States (and Western Europe), but the following list is a typical example.