The Dale and Pam Dierker farm near Sweet Springs, has been in his family since 1898. This barn was once his grandparents' home and was remodeled into a barn in the 1990s. A new house was built on the farm in the 1970s. (Marcia Gorrell/Democrat-News) [Click to enlarge]

Dale Dierker remembers fondly the years his grandfather, George "Shorty" Elsner, and grandmother, Marie, lived on the family farm located east of Sweet Springs.

"Grandpa never owned a tractor," he said, adding that he was in his late 70s before he sold his team of horses.

In fact, Dierker remembers coming to the farm in the 1950s when his grandpa would get out his team.

"He would still raise a lot of potatoes. I can remember when I was little; it was a lot of fun. Grandpa would get his plow and team out, and that's how he would turn the potatoes over and we went along and picked them up," he said.

He used to walk a lot with his grandfather, who would tell him about the farm, which was originally 270 acres purchased by his great-grandparents, Henry and Lena (Meyer) Elsner, in 1898.

"Grandpa used to love the river, that's why I think he took this side," said Dierker. His grandfather had purchased 78 acres from his father in the 1940s. The land rises above the Blackwater River.

When they were younger, his grandfather had spent a lot of time camping and "playing" along the river with his siblings.

"They used to love to go fishing and gigging and swimming in the Blackwater," he said.

Although the river was fun to play in, it also caused some problems.

There is now a road in front of the house, but at one time there was a crossing two or three miles east of the house and the road followed right along the river, and came out at Sweet Springs. The driveway of his grandfather's house was steep, climbing out of the Blackwater bottoms.

"My grandfather said there were times, if they were somewhere and it started raining, they'd have to hurry to get home because it (road and driveway) wasn't graveled," he said.

Several times they would get stuck, unable to make it up the hill to their house, so they would leave the Model T or Model A automobile down in the bottoms. If it kept raining and the river got out of its banks, there were times the car would get covered up with water.

"He said the only thing you could do is wait until the water goes down and take your team of horses down there, and pull the car up the hill," he said.

Then they would get a bucket of water and clean the car up. They would take out and clean the spark plugs and then the car would start again, he said.

"He said those old engines were built real tight and you didn't get water in them," he said.

The road was moved in the 1920s to where it is now when the "Berry Bridge was built over the Blackwater, just about an 1/8 of a mile from the farm.

Crews at that time didn't travel back and forth, so they stayed in the Elsner's house when Dierker's mother, an only child, was little.

She slept in the room with her parents, while the foreman of the crew rented her bedroom. They cleaned out an old chicken brooder house where the rest of the crew slept, said Dierker.

"My grandmother cooked all the meals for them," he said. The crew then paid for the meals and the room and board. Even though she never had running water or indoor plumbing, Dierker remembers himself the "feasts" his grandmother could make.

"Dale said she could make a feast like you wouldn't believe, without any running water," said Pam.

His grandfather not only farmed, raising some corn along with livestock, but also worked on the road district.

Dierker said the men on the road crew would put as large a rock as they could in a "rock crusher," and then after the rock was crushed into gravel, they would scoop it with a shovel into a wagon, pulled behind a horse.

"When they got enough gravel in the wagon, then they would take a couple people and go out on the roads and put the gravel in the tracks," she said, adding that they didn't cover the whole roads, but just the tire tracks.

His grandfather also helped build the brick grain bins in Sweet Springs. Although Dierker didn't know what year they were built, the bins are still part of the MFA elevator there.

"They had bricklayers come in and build it. He hired on carrying bricks all the way to the top," he said. "He said it was great, you'd just carry your bricks up there."

The "stairs" were made of boards, with no handrail.

His grandfather always liked heights, enjoying any chance to climb even when he was much older and had moved to Emma, he said.

"I came by one time and Grandpa was in the tree getting apples, so I told him to get down and I'd get them," said Pam Dierker, Dale's wife.

She got up in the tree, but she couldn't get down.

"I got stuck in the tree and the 90-year-old had to come and get me down," she laughed.

The original farm house was built for his great-grandparents in 1919 by Dee Haggard, according to a tag they found in the house.

Although his grandmother had died in 1968, his grandfather lived in the house until 1974, and still had no running water or indoor plumbing, when he moved at age 83, after remarrying and moving to a "modern" house in Emma.

"He said that bathroom was awful nice," laughed Dierker.

His parents, Lester and Frances (Elsner) Dierker bought the farm in the early 1970s and then built a modern house in 1976.

Dierker's mother was born, baptized and raised in the old house, until finishing high school. She remembered taking sandwiches to her father in the field when he was thrashing wheat.

In 1994, Dale and Pam bought 60 acres of the farm, while his brother bought the other 18 acres. They live in the house his parent's built and raise cattle. Just recently they were awarded the Century Farm award.

In 1996, they were remodeled the old home into a barn, and still use it today.

"It wasn't good enough to fix back into a house, but we could still get some use out of it," he said.

When they were remodeling the barn, they filled in the cistern, which is where his grandparents had gotten all of their water. The home's gutters and down spouts ran underground dumping into the cistern.

He said it was made with mortared brick and shaped like an old milk bottle. It was about 10 feet in diameter and 15 foot deep.

"I don't know how they did that, because it wasn't concrete on the outside," he said.

Before electricity, his mother had told him they used the cistern like a refrigerator, storing butter and other perishables there, because it stayed cool. They would put them on a rope and pull the items up when needed.

The Dierkers said that their grandson, age 9, already said he wants to take over the family farm someday. Their grown children also agree they want to keep it in the family.

Contact Marcia Gorrell at marshallag@socket.net